Selfsaboteur
by Yincira
Summary: Slav sneezing on a butterfly leads to Bob kicking Krolia out of Keith's orbit. She handles the colony reveal a tad differently.
1. neo didn't do it

**· · · · · · ·**

Once upon a time, Slav calculted a future he didn't like very much, thus he took it upon himself to sneeze onto an unfortunate butterfly passing by.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Once upon a little later, a Galra woman on a space whale had a very weird dream about an annoying Bob dropping anvils on her skull. A lot. The headache lasted a week.

Fortunately she recovered quickly and all went on as if nothing had happened.

As if.

 **· · · · · · ·**

"These transports haven't been used in generations," Romelle said. "None of the Alteans in the colony would know how to fly one, even if we desired to."

In light of just being told that a sick child had piloted an escape vessel, Krolia found this very peculiar.

Yet behind her, she heard Keith's confident, "I think I got us covered there."

Her son was young and had not done even close to a significant amount of spy work. She'd reign him in before anything went awry.

"Right. Why don't you get us some rations, we'll stay here to avoid notice," Krolia told Romelle.

The moment she was gone, she faced her son with a stern look.

He was usually unflappable, but she got him to look away somewhat embarrassed. "What?"

"It doesn't add up," Krolia said. "A sick pilot is one thing, but a child who wouldn't even know how to read the controls is another. Something is wrong here. Before we leave, we will scan the planet's surface for any other activity."

She hopped into the aircraft. "I'm going to see whether I can encode this somehow in case it's a trap. One can never be certain enough."

"Do you really think it's a trap? What we just heard lines up pretty well with what we know of Lotor. He's a deceiver out for quintessence. Y'know, victory or death, doesn't matter whose death."

"I don't trust Lotor one wit, but that doesn't mean I'm going to unconditionally trust everyone who speaks against him."

The pod's mechanism was simple enough, an antique probably meant for simple flights around the planet. It was Altean and thus had unfamiliar coding so she didn't get in before Romelle returned, but in case of emergency could probably still pilot it. There appeared to be no complicated hijack programs or fleet mechanisms.

"How long do you think this will take?" Romelle said? "Do we really need this much?"

She had but an arm full of perishable food. Either she was a great actor or a nut.

"Keith, explain her what we need."

Krolia ignited the engine, finding the device a suitable hovercraft. A program popped up asking for authorization and intent, as typical for advanced private property.

After Romelle got food that was, well less perishable but still had no good containers, they lifted off unseen.

It was really cramped inside the cockpit, and a thoroughly unpleasant half day flying to the moon. Keith and Krolia took turns piloting. The atmosphere of the planet was no problem without convenient space whale, but the debris field outside required careful navigating.

The debris field that was right in the path between the moon and the planet. Romelle didn't know where the moon had been at the time of Bandor's crash landing.

All along, she kept her eyes on the quintessence reader, but no signs other than Romelle showed up. She almost doubted her moon guess meant anything, up until seeing the moon.

Oh, it was used already : despite lacking vegetation, it had an atmosphere complete with clouds. A quick scan confirmed the air was breathable too.

It couldn't just be for the enclosed Galra building they found. It was alight with purple lines, but no alarms went off as they approached and no signs of life showed up on her quintessence scanners. Nobody to use this atmosphere.

At all.

Not even bionic. There wasn't a single guard, and no alarm went off when they pried open the doors with blades. They practically could stroll inside all the way into the central rooms of the dome.

Here lay long halls filled with glass containers. The dark purple lights poorly illuminated it, but the heaters were on and moisture had condensed on the pods.

Romelle wiped a nearby container just to stand back in shock, exclaiming her brother's name. What a coincidence it just happened to contain her lost other brother. Perhaps Alteans could subconsciously detect familiar quintessence? Krolia switched on her quintessence reader again. Still nothing.

"Lotor is harvesting their quintessence!" Keith said, because of course he'd jump to conclusions.

"There are no readings from here. Whatever quintessence was harvested, it's no longer present," Krolia said with deliberate calmness. "These people are still preserved. Let's not jump to conclusions."

"Isn't it obvious?" Romelle said. "Why would Lotor even have this secret if not for nefarious purpose?"

Medical bay? But indeed, why the secrecy? She didn't trust Lotor, not with this set up, but that didn't mean Romelle was a perfect source either. As a spy and a rebel, she had run into countless situations of questionable allies.

"Alright, I believe we have fair reason to assume Lotor a criminal, but not that he is a loose canon who will turn on the coalition on a whim," Krolia said. "And we have proof that something else is going down here."

"What is this about? You're actually defending him even when you see this?" Romelle gestured at the pods around them. "How can you?"

"Listen up, child. I have been in the business of lying and infiltration for centuries. The entire creed of my order comes down to knowledge or death. The knowledge you have provided is _lacking_ , as you yourself admitted. You don't have the whole story? Do I and Keith have anything of the actual story?"

Romelle clenched her hands and glared, but said nothing else.

"Right. Let's stay grounded in reality. Romelle, you will stay with me. Keith, I want you to track where those tubes go and verify that they are preserved despite already being drained. Romelle and I are going to find out where Bandor got that pod."

After Keith departed, Krolia went down the hall they'd come from. Romelle stiffly followed her.

Romelle didn't cry so far. Perhaps it was shock, perhaps something wasn't right. Perhaps she was the kind of person to bury her grief when taken by anger.

That did not erase that they were in a very suspicious situation. Still no alarm, still no guards. It did not add up the aggressive reading this girl seemed dead set on advocating. Even in the kindest possible nature, anger and attachment could not be allowed to dictate directions.

She had erred here, she knew that. Choosing her child over the mission, and by proxy everyone else was selfish. Counter to knowledge, a decision driven by emotion. The Blade of Marmora were to sacrifice themselves

But then she saw the flashes of the future on her way here. Potential futures, just glimpses. Some terrifying. Some soothing. After the headache, sometimes contrary.

She had no speculated on consequences on the way here when she had a son to catch up with, a past to reminiscence, but now she stood in what was a graveyard or a medical bay she knew.

Knowledge or death could mean more than choosing one's own life. A lack of knowledge was the death of people, something practiced in the Blade of Marmora in the context of rebellion and spying.

Krolia had never been prepared to stand at the root of a butterfly effect. What they had found here would change the course of history in one way or another, and she lacked information. It was her duty to do everything in her power to wring out as much knowledge as she could.

Even if that meant being a little mean.

At the first closed door they encountered, Krolia stopped. Romelle caught up.

"Is something wrong?"

"Open it," Krolia said.

Romelle had enough strength to throw entire doors, but still needed tools to get a grip on a door. Krolia didn't give her her blade, so Romelle had to walk back and tear loose a plate off of a tank.

"Why are you making me do this?" she asked as they returned to the door.

"I want to verify an Altean could make it out of this facility alone so my report will be as detailed as possible."

"Shouldn't we hurry to warn everyone?"

"We are in a time dilation. Keep walking to the next door and open it."

"But—"

"Knowledge or death, that is the creed of my people." She made a point of emphasizing _death_ with a vicious glare.

They passed five doors while Romelle's hands got a tad bloody for poorly handling the metal.

A lot of rooms were empty, but some had equipment and body suits similar to those worn by the Alteans in the tank. These lacked the markings seen on the afflicted. Krolia took one for later research.

Some rooms were full of equipment she couldn't recognize. She photographed these before moving on.

They found a control station, abandoned. Beyond it lay a hangar full of the same transport crafts as had taken them here. There were a few tiny structural differences in the thrusters and similar, but no doubt the same model.

"Did your brother arrive in one of these?"

"Yes."

Perhaps Bandor had secretly taught himself to fly the craft. But why would Lotor have a craft lying around unused among the Alteans who couldn't employ them? The Alteans didn't have any Galra staff living with them. Precautions?

She photographed all of it, before opening one.

"Romelle, come here. We need to check out something."

When Romelle climbed onto the craft with her, Krolia pushed her into the pilot seat.

"Switch it on."

Romelle looked torn between stubborn refusal and anxiety. Dealing with Galra all her life made her almost amused at this, intimidation shouldn't be this easy.

Romelle fumbled with the controls for a while until she accidentally activated it.

The screen flickered on with a request for a password. No other security, and it didn't seem to act on ground control permissions.

"I can't read Galran," Romelle said.

Krolia leaned over, and hacked the system. A mixture of Galra and Altean coding, probably updated to interface with Alteans better.

"Let's pretend Bandor overheard them say the password."

Once the craft was online, it waited. Romelle closed her hands around the controls.

"Do these buttons do anything?"

"Why don't you pay attention to the throttle first?" Krolia said, and as predicted Romelle had no idea what that was.

When she looked up with pleading eyes, Krolia shook her head.

Romelle poked at things a bit, and eventually made the connection the throttle had to be something physical, even if not what she remember.

Krolia almost hoped she'd overpower it, to end the exercise sooner, but Romelle was actually careful enough to just sent them careening into the opposite craft. A bit of shrieking later, pulling at the controls, and the craft hovered more or less in the direction of the exit.

"Okay, let's presume Bandor overheard the button for opening the doors."

"There is no button to open the doors," Krolia said. "Your best shot is going over there to unlock it. Good thing the really are no guards."

Somewhat irritated, Romelle got out, went all the way up to the control station, slammed numerous buttons, ignited the fire alarm, sent out the cleaning droids, called back the cleaning droids, failed to turn off the fire extinguishers, put on music, and open two wrong doors and a hatch before the hangar got open.

Drenched, she returned to the cockpit. Without a word she plopped into the pilot's seat and closed her hands on the control wheel.

They presumed a lot about Bandor overhearing stuff to get outside and hovering above the ground.

They were in one of the open rings of the compound. Surrounding the building was a pit, spacious enough for flying. The two towers on one side were combat intended, but the building itself was almost hugging the environment and itself. Keeping things close.

"Let's elevate. Throttle up the power. Keep the ship level," she said.

Romelle didn't keep the ship level at all, but they eventually went straight up. Spinning. They 'presumed' Bandor had overheard about the stabilizer in detail.

The low cloud line was rapidly approaching. Romelle eyed it nervously.

"This is good. It's working. Anything going to change soon?"

"Oh, the electromagnetic field of a moon is denser when it's facing the sun," Krolia said. "It may interfere with the readings a little — ah yes, there it is."

Nothing really visible changed about the screens, just a slight zoning out of a line or two, but Romelle started frantically looking around for changes.

"We'll get rubble once we hit the ionosphere," Krolia said. "Mind the turbulence, we want to be stable as long as possible."

"The yono what now? What's turbulence?"

By now Romelle was shaking like a weed, she was almost certainly not faking incompetence.

"Aren't you going to turn on the sensors?" Krolia said.

"What sensors?" Romelle squeaked.

"Alright, we'll pretend Bandor overheard a guard narrating how to use the entire ship's programming so he knows all about pitch, roll and yaw."

She activated the sensors, which provided a neat little line of readings and also summoned a visual map of atmospheric pressure. Neat system, thought of everything. Almost like designed to hold a child's hand.

"I don't know what that means!"

Well, an informed child anyway.

"Well, that over there means things are about to get shaky," Krolia said. "Please adjust the balance."

"But I don't see anything!" Romelle looked between window and readings frantically.

"Don't bother with the window, this is invisible turbulence," Krolia said, gesturing at the screen. "We don't have a meteorologist station to update us, so the readings must suffice."

"But what does it _mean_?"

"That you pay extra attention to the tilt," Krolia said.

Romelle did this by throwing up her lunch on the dashboard. Unfazed, Krolia tore a bit of her clothes and wiped it off; an acceptable sacrifice for not dying.

Romelle still steered, somewhat. She didn't do anything but give a direction to the craft.

"What are you doing with the throttle?"

"I'm going as slow as he can!"

"Indeed. We're losing the escape velocity and are about to drop to our deaths."

Alright, a little exaggerated perhaps.

Romelle screamed and slammed a few button and a pedal. In her panic, she got speed by accident. They spent the next five minutes in turbulence hell, going up and down and through clouds before Romelle eventually found _up_.

Krolia had to steady the ship half with her own effort just to keep _up_ a thing.

The red planet was right above them, devoid of any recognizable features.

"We are about to reach the vacuum of space," Krolia said. "Quick, this is the part where we transfer from jets to rocket mode. See, for aircraft the atmosphere provides the reaction mass for the propellant, but for spacecraft reaction mass and propellant is the same force. We switch modes for maximum energy preservation."

Romelle was on the brink of crying. "Please just take us back to the surface!"

Krolia was so tempted to explore the debris ring with Romelle, but at this point it might be crossing into torture. Romelle actually smelled legitimately afraid.

And fact on it when she threw up her hands and crawled back. "Please, just do it!"

The ship veered off course right away. Krolia dove forward, grabbed the controls and steadied the ship.

"Romelle, move."

As Romelle crawled out of the seat, Krolia slipped in and steered the craft back safely.

Keith waited between the two towers for the.

When Romelle dropped shaking and nauseous from the cockpit, he came rushing over.

"What happened? Did you get attacked?"

Romelle ran to the edge of the platform to empty the rest of her stomach.

"No, Romelle just verified that the Alteans on the colony never learned to fly," Krolia said, nodding at the vessel they'd just found. "We need to act on the presumption that in the time Bandor away, he received education on how to pilot."

She gestured at the clouds. "This moon has no vegetation, but it has an atmosphere. It was terraformed to allow out door activity without risk of suffocation, something he would not bother with if this had just been a harvesting facility. I believe we are looking at a training ground of some sort."

"A training ground? Then what about the drained Alteans?"

"The preserved Alteans," Krolia said. "Whatever Lotor is up to is dubious as hell, and he hid it from the Alteans in the ground colony for a reason. Until we know that reason, we will not sound the alarm. Let's take our discoveries back to Kolivan and have this investigated better. We could use someone to hack the mainframe and discover what was going on here."

"But Lotor is stringing along the coalition to use them!"

"That means he needs them," she explained patiently. "As long as he doesn't have his goal, they will be alright. Our priority is to reach the leader of the coalition, princess Allura and _inform_ her of everything. I understand your worry for your loved ones, you know I do. But I have not forsaken the creed of Marmora entirely.

Stiffly he nodded.

"Alright. We will lay out all information before the princess, starting with how a sick child allegedly learned piloting on the spot. Or do you have an explanation for that?"

"Maybe Neo did it?" Keith said.

Krolia just stared at him, waiting for an explanation. There had to be a point. Her son didn't joke.

"Never mind. Just some old movie with pod people who could download pilot programs. You're right. We should be careful about this."

Keith went to retrieve Romelle.

Krolia gathered up all their evidence. Along with her own recordings and the suit, Keith added an empty quintessence canister and a few chips pried out of a mainframe; no doubt for his decoder friend. She packaged everything with care

Now ... now it was time to enter the life of her child had formed. His own group, whom he had turned away from. It would happen in the middle of what might well be a cold war on top of a civil war and liberation front. Any chances for the kind of family life of earth ...

Perhaps it was better not to dwell. The pursuit of knowing about that led her nowhere.

 **· · · · · · ·**

A long time ago, Keith had learned the kind of patience of waiting for someone who wouldn't return. A kind of stagnant enduring, always revisiting what could not be renewed.

The quantum abyss had forced a new way of processing the past onto him. Though his father would not return, he learned more of him as if he was there to teach him. Not like the way he learned from his mother, here and now, breathing the same air.

The way back tested their bond forged in solitude in small ways, now they had company. Both were used to put up walls, content that way, but they hadn't been needed in front of his wolf alone. Krolia didn't quite trust Romelle either, adding to it. The easy little trends, the occasional smile and the lack of strictness they'd developed went away.

And she didn't entirely trust him either. Sending him away on errands while she test Romelle, shutting down his conclusion. _Child_ hadn't been directed at him, but it felt like it did. She wasn't impressed.

Not that he needed awe. It just ... wasn't the warm ease he knew from his father and Shiro.

Returning took less time with a craft, but they still often had to stop to hunt and replenish their provisions. They landed whatever space whale they come across, and if they went the right direction they stayed for a while. Those times were both easier due to the space, and harder because Romelle was _bubbly_ sometimes and that made his mother's occasional coldness stand out more.

Romelle had the strength of an Altean and could handle herself in combat quite decently, but hunting was another thing. It was an excuse to leave her behind with the wolf, but every time he and his mother left he didn't get around to saying it. Whatever it was. Whatever he wanted.

And worse yet, the time flashes had changed for some reason. It had always been the same before. Of Lance in Allura's arms. Of a world _without_ Allura, where Lance shuffled himself away from the public eye to be a farmer of her flowers. Of Shiro drifting away from space to be married on earth, far from adventure. Of everyone falling apart save for selfies with Allura's grave.

The futures he saw now includes everyone death, and voids, and sometimes the old future, and sometimes another combination where others had died. Some things were downright confusing, such as multiple Shiros, or Lance around a darkening Allura, following her into the void. The pieces were even harder to string together because now there were multiple timelines.

Almost always he saw himself, leaving earth behind forever to integrate into the Blade of Marmora.

When he was little, he had wanted one super power. The ability to change the past. Now he was here with the potential to change a future where he'd wish for that again. And he had no idea what to even do about bonding with his mother, let alone the burden of a universe.

They were tied, because he had the sense that Krolia didn't trust him to not screw it all up.

It built up over time, by time.

On their umpteenth hunt together, he stopped in a grove. "Mother ..."

On the journey inward he had spoken with his mother only of the past, things relevant to themselves, as to avoid invading anyone else's privacy.

"It's been like this since a little before we arrived on the colony," Krolia said. "You've started having divergent visions too, haven't you?"

"How did you ...?"

"I just had a vision you'd fret over this till the next meteor shower," Krolia said. "I put it to the test, whether we can change time."

Oh. Of course, she might see whatever conversation they would have ahead of time, if with the right luck.

"Is anything bothering you? We don't have the same ones, right?"

"Just some minor irritations."

"Of what sort? Impact to the mission?"

"Just Lance is showing up a lot more. Do you have any idea how annoying he can get? If he's going to be in the way, then ... ugh. Just believe, he's frustrating."

"I did see him hover around the princess and Lotor a lot. They've started to feature more in our futures, sometimes for better or worse," Krolia said.

"Lance has a crush on Allura, so he's competition for our current enemy," Keith said. "I bet he's going to do something stupid."

Okay, so he hadn't gotten any clear visions about that yet, but he knew Lance. He made a lot of mistakes. It was practically a Lance thing.

And maybe a Keith thing too. Why were there so much futures?

He faced his mother again, hoped she knew the question. She stayed quiet.

"I don't know what to with all this time crap," he said. And all the people involved. Shiro always believed him to be a great leader, but he had nothing to go on.

When she spoke, it was technical.

"The future is cause and effect. Per definition, the cause changes if we get a flash from the future when we are the cause," Krolia said. "I realized this within the facility. We hold the fate of the universe in our hands, but it's less power and more of a bomb. The best we can perhaps do is contemplate different options and hope we get relevant flashes."

She took a cross legged seat before him.

"I believe it's time we explore the creed of Marmora, the Galra who founded the Blade."

"Knowledge or death," Keith muttered, sitting down in the same pose.

It was a story founded in the bloodshed of the Galra empire, and knowledge was their salvation and escape. She told it all in a detached voice, wove together a philosophy of absolute unselfishness to counter the greed of the Galra.

She described it as seeing the world as a tapestry of consequences and beliefs in need of refinement. The stagnant Galra empire only ate, never truly developed under its ageless king. To be here in the quantum abyss, they had more choice than anyone.

Keith's visions were not the same as hers, and the more she told him stories of the Galra, of Marmora, and of other worlds, the less stable the flashes became, and the more he learned and the less he knew he understood.

Knowledge begins with a challenge, she told him in so many ways. A question, the right one, and the answer might not be anything that seemed of value at first.

She did not seem disturbed that with every such a question, they created and extinguished other worlds. Or did they still exist? He didn't feel like he was branching off and ...

Krolia's hand his arm startled him. "Don't wander too far that way," she said.

"I thought you wanted me to learn this."

She sighed. "I do, but you are also young. You don't have to do it all at once, especially here. We'll go back to the camp and sleep tonight. Write down what you saw, I'll do the same. And ... don't show Romelle."

When he stood up, his legs were painfully stiff. The world shook a little, he briefly wondered whether the whale had trouble.

The entire starscape had changed.

"How long have we been doing this?"

No answer, for Krolia had frozen for another flash of herself alone. She stood still longer than ever, before she broke into a smile. "You'll have to show me that movie, once this over."

What?

"The one with Neo. Alright?"

Keith said yes, and forgot about it.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Romelle twisted and turned in her sleep. The flashes brought her back to the life she had lost, and distorted, empty futures that made no sense.

At first she had thought Keith and Krolia had to have the same problem, they took forever to get back the first time. But over time, they stayed hunting longer, and whenever they did so, the flashes got weirder. More intense. Less meaningful. Sometimes they changed in the middle.

Once, she followed them. They were just sitting on a big green patch, talking with their eyes closed. They'd already caught food.

So she was alone with her own visions.

Lotor was in it a lot. The never changing face of their savior, who took her family one by one, to their deaths. There was a future where she took him to his death, melted to the seat of a pilot. A monster on the outside, the way she saw him inside.

Another future where he remained the emperor.

Keith's friend, Allura, was in her future a lot. Allura meant nothing to her, or at least, not as a princess. New Altea had no monarchy. They might need a leader, though, and everything Romelle had seen indicated Allura knew how to. Too bad she'd also seen a few other things she didn't like about her. She was too close to Lotor. Sometimes she was his enemy.

Sometimes, there was an Altean woman on the throne.

Once, she stood on a beige temple.

The visions were only sight and sound, they didn't come with understanding. So she wasn't sure why she was never really in them.

She didn't talk about them with Keith and Krolia, like they didn't talk of hers. Keith asked a few times, she always said she saw her family, and a new family she'd start in the future. If they didn't trust her with their weird meditation stuff, she wasn't going to trust them.

Once they left the quantum abyss, so they left the visions. Romelle was left in peace, and alone with her anger. Seeing her family alive over and over had kept it alive. Even if only by words, it had to go somewhere, so let her meet this princess of nothing.

Krolia contacted her people, who told her Allura wasn't with the coalition, but with emperor Lotor at Daibazaal. Not to be disturbed.

Oh, she was about to be a disturbance.

 **· · · · · · ·**

"How do we know you're the real Keith and not his bigger, cooler, grizzled older brother?"

Thus Krolia met her son's friends, a line of shocked faces and one potent reason to reinterpret her son's minor irritations.

"I don't have time for this, Lance."

While Keith spoke to the others, Lance stood by arms wide for a hug he never got. Keith pointedly ignored him until Lance's face dropped and his arms sank.

Krolia filed this away for later and focused on the task at hand.

The tall one had to be Shiro, her son's mentor. She knew him well from both flashbacks and future; some of which was rather worrying. But for all of the past, he had been nothing but good to her child, and they had a crisis on hand. This too was for later.

"Takashi Shirogane, I am Krolia. We have urgent news. Where is princess Allura?"

 **· · · · · · ·**


	2. kuron didn't deserve this

**· · · · · · ·**

Lotor and Allura were taking a trip to the quintessence field after visiting a magical realm guarded by a spirit had endowed Allura with the skills to animate ships. Alright. The more you knew.

The timing was bizarre, that everything came together precisely in concord with their own arrival here. Now she had all these ... kids ... trying to play warrior of the universe. Literal kids, except Shiro and Coran. There were no other coalition members anywhere on the ship.

So Krolia was left as the one handling the bomb on herself.

"No, we're _not_ going to walk all the way to the bridge, we're going to prioritize contacting princess Allura," Krolia said, invoking her patience with rookies. "The short story is we found incriminating material that indicate Lotor might be a mass murderer, or hatch a secret scheme of some sort."

The smallest warrior, Pidge, opened an outside view of the castle on a small projected screen.

"They just entered the quintessence field."

"Can't we fly in there and attack?" Romelle said. "That way he won't even have back up, it's our best chance!"

"Allura is with him. We can't risk hurting her," Lance said.

"Why are we even attacking?"

"When they return, we'll get this all sorted out."

Oh by Marmora. Her job description did not involve babysitter.

Absolutely nobody in the room suggested that causing political upheaval was an issue to consider as well. Le sigh.

Krolia waited a beat for anyone to suggest immediately resorting to violence might not be the best idea. Nobody spoke up, except Romelle, whose impatience got the better still.

"He has you all fooled. He's a monster! Take him down now!"

Pidge opened a small projected screen, showing a strange ship emerging from an actual dimensional rift.

"Looks like they're coming back."

Romelle snatched Krolia's recordings from the vessel, and forced open a display of the drained Alteans. "This is what he did! He saved us just to get a quintessence source!"

"What? Let me see that." Pidge took the recorder.

Romelle turned to Keith. "What are you waiting for? Aren't you their leader? Open fire!"

"No! Princess Allura is with him." Lance said.

"Indeed, we will absolutely not endanger the princess!" Coran said.

Krolia rammed her arm against the vessel.

"You, quiet," Krolia told Romelle. "You are out of your league, let us handle this. Not only will we not shoot at princess Allura, we will avoid provoking Lotor altogether. We do not have the full story yet."

"Let's get to the bridge," Keith said. "Once they return, they'll no doubt come there."

"Right, this way," Shiro said.

And everyone moved to follow.

"Are you all out of your mind?" Krolia said. "If Lotor is indeed false about his assertions of peace, the last thing we want to do is provoke him into taking the leader of the coalition hostage. Honestly, is is the height of stupidity to reveal his secret while Allura is standing next to him. We must separate them _as quickly as possible_."

The group was strangely split in their responses, looking at both Shiro and Keith. Most settled on the former, but there was a delay. Too slow, so she stepped in.

"Keith, you will approach Allura as soon as they land and request an audience to report to her. If Lotor would like to join in, do your stoic loner schtick and act embarrassed about wanting to catch up with a friend who you want to introduce to family. Everyone else, prepare a room for Romelle and the evidence."

Krolia left no room for argument and took Keith to the elevator.

On the way down, she asked, "What can we expect from Allura?"

"I don't know. Why is she even trusting Lotor like this? I thought she was better."

"Were you not Voltron's leader once? You should know your subordinates not just as assets, but as people too. Tell me about her prior interaction with Lotor."

"I wasn't around for most of that, though ... the first time they met, she'd just started piloting the Blue Lion, when he—"

"Tricked you into the distorted planet, I had a flash of that, yes," Krolia said. All of that had been his interaction with Lance; the flashes always tended to be emotionally relevant elements so Allura didn't feature at all.

"He isolated her as the weakest target and chased her down," Keith said.

"And? How did she feel about that?"

"Uh ... Hunk was talking about making her favorite dish to cheer her up, I think? I was kinda weird he wasn't talking celebration. She seemed fine though."

Oh good grief. Aside of there apparently being only one team member paying attention to how anyone felt, this meant Allura had a potentially traumatic foundation for her relation with Lotor, tinted with fear and deception.

Pidge contacted Krolia through her own tablet; damn, that girl was good getting into stuff.

"The ship just entered," Pidge said. "Putting it on camera now."

Their craft was another of the type already in the hangar, albeit shaped very differently. Hmm ...

Lotor and Allura exited by levitating platform, the princess was unsteady on her feet and—

Damn, those were definitely longing gazes—

And there they were making out. Wonderful. The leader of the coalition had a fling with Zarkon's son, whom they were about to accuse of murder.

It also threw a wrench into a few flashes she had seen of a future where Keith, Allura and Lotor were in the same room without hostility. Prior assumption Allura saw good reason to keep cooperating was now tainted with the possibility she was just horny.

"What is she doing?"

Keith was affronted, like the youth he was. They needed a cool head more than ever.

Calm, she asked, "Keith, what do we have here?"

"She's just out of her mind!"

She gave a long suffering sigh. "No, the leader of the coalition is uninformed and in a vulnerable situation in such a way Lotor's motives have just becomes complicated. If he is seducing her then he may have plans directly involving the coalition. You better not lose your mind, Keith. When that door opens we proceed as planned. Calmly, quickly."

The elevator opened. They ran for the hangar door, and switched into false calmness the moment the door opened.

Lotor and Allura were already walking to the exist, both confident, both a tad flustered. Interesting.

When Allura saw Keith she stopped, surprised before a smile broke. "When did you get back?"

Somewhat awkward and cold, Krolia noted. There was a tension here that might not work to their benefit.

"This is my mother, Krolia, a member of the Blade of Marmora," Keith said. "We were on a mission we just got back from. Can we talk? Alone?"

"If you have any concerns regarding the Blade's work, Lotor should hear them too," Allura said.

Lotor was giving Keith a weird look already, and Keith as glaring way too obviously.

Time to amp it up. Neither Allura nor Lotor knew this would be out of character for her, so Krolia put a congenial smile on her face and leaned in a little. "Pardon my son. What he _really_ wants to know about is how much he should be reading into Lance's greeting just now, and whether the boy got over you."

Allura cast a very uncomfortable, quick glance at Lotor, who thankfully started looking bemused.

Keith burst out, "No. We are here for business. Lance is just weird," and crossed his arms.

"He called you grizzled and cool just now. You should have given him that hug." She gave Keith a very uncharacteristic pinch in the cheek. Keith made the perfect _mom not in front of others_ face.

"Please take your time, we would not wish to impose," Krolia lied.

Allura looked downright uncomfortable. "Oh no, I'm sure I can spare a moment. Lotor, if you will excuse me? We can do further tests this evening. Hunk will likely throw a small feast to celebrate Keith's—"

"I don't need celebration."

"... reunion with his mother and long awaited return."

"Then let me not deter you. May I use your laboratory to store the samples?"

"Of course. I will join as soon as possible."

"Until later then, princess." Hand to chest, he bowed and went to unload.

As casually as possible, the left the hangar. Lotor really did go ahead to unload the samples alone. What a strange lack of servants, was he really here alone? Krolia had expected the ship to be swarming with his staff.

As soon as they were in the elevator, Allura's face turned outright dejected.

"I really don't want to celebrate your return with this, but maybe you should be a little more open with Lance? Without you to annoy, he's been overthinking things. He appears to be in love with me now. He confessed to my mice. Didn't he know they'd tell me?And now I'm ... well, I don't know how to announce this but—"

"Please," Krolia said before she did anything inconvenient like bringing up political marriage. "With all due respect, we have more serious concerns. My behavior just now was to separate you from Lotor without rousing suspicion."

Allura frowned. "Why would you need to separate me from Lotor?"

Pidge sent directions to the room, a back place that Lotor wasn't likely to just walk into at random.

Once the door closed, Krolia handed Allura a device to display the recordings. Hunk and Lance had laid out the physical evidence, while Pidge had hooked up Krolia's data to the screen, but Allura could only stare at Romelle.

"You're an Altean. But how?"

"Pidge, where is Lotor?" Krolia asked.

"In the laboratory, setting up measurement tools for quintessence samples," Pidge said. "He brought a lot of equipment on board and we let him, who knows what's in there. I'll see whether I can lock him in the laboratory. Maybe we can drop him out a hatch into the void if things get dire."

"Get dire?" Allura asked.

"He killed my brother and thousands of others to harvest quintessence!"

And Pidge added, "Lotor has been lying to us the whole time! He's a murderer, just like his father!"

Krolia tapped Pidge's computer. "Calm down. Don't lock him up, we don't want him to find out we're on to him. Block any frequency he might use outside the castle in case he has any plans to contact reinforcements."

"To do what?" By now Allura looked utterly distraught

"Perhaps to use you all up, now that he got what he wanted," Krolia said. "Perhaps something else. Romelle, tell your story. Do so in order and pause so I and Keith can add our findings."

 **· · · · · · ·**

Allura had left the hangar caught between mortification and enthrallment, both demanding dominance while surrounded by her friends and Coran. She had expected a bland report, her main enemy being her own distraction.

Alteans had strict rules about courtship and she had just flaunted them all. Coran didn't know anything. No proper conduct had been followed. They'd just ... kissed and it was — no, she couldn't let this get to her head. It _must've_ just been the quintessence.

It didn't mean anything in the face of what she had just learned. She would not allow it to.

Lotor had kept her own people a secret from her.

The reason, thousands of drained bodies.

The tablet cracked under her trembling fingers. Keith spoke on of the facility, of the atmosphere, of the equipment. Krolia added in things he left out, guiding along to a conclusion.

Quintessence whispered still in her ears. It barely mattered what the facility was for. Her people were dead, and the whispers took the form of their cries. She heard Altea die all over again.

A breeding ground, until he no longer needed them?

The voices brought down all Allura had built up for herself.

Her new home, acceptance for the Galra, shaky trust despite the ever creeping memories of Galra ships destroying her home. She had put all that aside to be near Lotor for the good of the universe.

For the good of herself too.

He couldn't have the quintessence. She was the life giver, she had to preserve life at all cost. She couldn't rebuild the universe on lies and secrets, could she?

In the mirror of her mind she no longer saw the rebuilding of Altea's legacy of peace. It was just herself, stupid and leading everyone into death the way her father had done. His fear that the enemy would gain Voltron, now on her doorstep.

"It must be a breeding ground," Allura said, forcing the words out. "We should secure the colony and the moon facility."

"So why are you still hesitating? We can get rid of him now. Let's do what Pidge says and throw him into space," Romelle said.

Before Allura could scramble a response together, Shiro put a hand on Romelle's shoulder. "The Galra empire is at war. Lotor is the only one that stands between total collapse. We cannot afford a power vacuum right now."

"That doesn't mean we just let him walk free!" Keith said. "Let's apprehend him while he doesn't suspect anything yet."

"Keith, that is _not_ your call," Krolia said. "Pardon my son, princess."

Lance scoffed. "Yeah, were you going to provoke him while Allura's not okay? Look at her."

"We might be able to avoid a confrontation altogether," Krolia said. "I believe there is more to the story, but we have no guarantee Lotor isn't dangerous. If you will take my advise as a spy : stall. Pretend you know nothing while we arrange as much nets to prevent fall out."

She was right. The coalition and Lotor's Galra had been woven together too closely, and the planets required the stability.

Allura steadied herself.

"If we are indeed caught in Lotor's most complex scheme yet, then we must presume that he might consider me disposable now and has not terminated us yet ..."

He just had been caught in the same rush of empty desire, perhaps.

"... maybe he would prefer to disband the Coalition without war and will arrange a similar deception to arrange my death. So. His ships can enter the rift now. We will keep Lotor in the dark for now. We contact all our allies to subtly disengage with his forces.

Pidge, organize everything Keith and Krolia have seen of the various futures.

Krolia, get in contact with Kolivan and Ryner of the Olkari to compose a team of technicians and medical assistance for the moon facility. Find out what it is for.

Hunk, contact Shay and see whether the Balmera is willing to travel into the quantum abyss to retrieve my people and replenish the survivors of the moon facility. If I can, I will send along quintessence from the field itself.

Lance, Keith, Krolia, once all is set you will cover me while I go to talk with him and figure out how much we can stall whatever he is planning, and smuggle away a dose of the rift quintessence for my people. Should it come to violence, please try not to damage the samples."

"We're on it," Pidge said, already working to get everyone the channels they needed.

The various noises of agreement faded, trivial to the scenes on the screen.

She couldn't help but look them over again and again, eyes latching onto the most of her people she had seen in so long, and knowing Lotor had done this. There was punishment for herself in it, one she knew she deserved for having been fooled by him.

She had long kept her eyes open for anything unsavory, but nothing had come up. All had come together. Or had it? Should she have checked up on the occupied territories? What about the ships they had made?

In the end, would he drain everyone of the coalition, even herself?

The conversation around her buzzed on, and she only became aware as Lance said her name.

"... betrayed Allura most of all. I knew he was fishy the moment he didn't prioritize liberating the occupied territory," Lance said, less loud than Keith but more miffed. "Allura, let's put a stop to him right now."

After what the mice had told her, she couldn't look at Lance anymore without seeing another motive. His jealousy at Matt, his sudden aggression at Lotor's proposal ... Lance meant well for herself, but wasn't the most unbiased friend.

She turned to Shiro ...

He wasn't here.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Shiro led Romelle further down the hall.

The last time he'd felt compelled to do anything like this, it had turned out with Lotor on the throne and Allura stronger. It had been right, and this, this also felt right.

"Where are you taking me?" Romelle asked.

He needed her for the diversion. He needed her for ... for ... the ideas ...

Why was he doing this again?

"I ... I don't know ..."

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, I'm ... no."

A sharp, cold wire threaded through his skull. Screaming, he buckled to his knees, clawing at his head, trying to it — her — _out_.

Romelle's hands on his back and shoulders barely registered. "Hey, hold on. What do I do?"

He wanted to say get help, bring in Allura, she'd know, but he could only scream more.

With all the strength of an Altean, Romelle lifted him to his feet. She held him by the arms. "Hold on, okay? I'll carry you back to the others."

No. No, he was to go elsewhere.

When Romelle ducked and pulled him along so she could lift him in her arms, he kicked her off her feet.

Before she hit the ground, he dragged her further down the hall despite himself. Her words no longer mattered.

"Quiet," he said, and didn't mean it. He wanted to raise his voice with her.

But the only voice that mattered was the one that said to bring him to her.

Bring Lotor to her, his master. His life giver.

Get her out. _Please_.

 **· · · · · · ·**

 _He didn't get it, that foolish boy, the danger he was in. Good thing that she was there for him._

 **· · · · · · ·**

Allura waited while Pidge scanned the castle for Shiro, only to turn up another problem.

"Guys, we got a problem!" Pidge turned up the a screen depicting the Sincline ships. "The hangar's been breached! It's Lotor's troops."

The screen identified three of his four generals. Lotor had once said his old crew had joined Haggar and he didn't tie with them anymore, so why did they show up at exactly the same time as Romelle?

"Does he know Romelle is here?" Krolia asked.

"Quiznak no, we never gave any Galra access to the castle ship!" Coran sputtered.

"Well, they sure are here now," Pidge said.

The lights switched of.

"It's as though someone hacked into the ship and let loose a "kill" protocol of some sort," Pidge said.

Allura sat back as the quiet crisis unfolded.

The virus moved faster than Pidge could keep up with, but she got into the system.

It had to be Lotor who set this up. The anger Allura had fought down threatened to take over. So they would die here after all. There really was no time.

No more time to chastise herself.

Allura got up and slashed the door open with her bayard s whip.

 **· · · · · · ·**

The lights were down, the doors were stuck, and so Lotor fretted. Why wouldn't he fret? This had to be the result of the ships coming right out of the quintessence field. Perhaps some kind of radiance or worse, an entity, caused interference with the ship's processes.

He secured the samples in their containers, crawled into a crate to boost one of his own reserve power barrels, and ran a few quick scans on the quintessence.

Odd. It didn't at all interfere with this mundane technology, and the scans indicated no disruptive radiance. Perhaps some unique interaction with the crystal?

He switched on the radio channel in his gauntlet, only to find it blocked in all possible ways.

Very odd.

Was it something he'd done, that they felt they should lock him up?

Maybe Allura hadn't been receptive after all? No, that couldn't be, he was sure she was. And had been for at least since two weeks. Right. Right? Had he missed something obvious to an Altean? Or had his Galra senses misread anything? Quintessence did have a tendency to make people act odd when in large quantities ...

He wouldn't have doubted himself if he wasn't randomly locked up here. State of the art Altean tech wouldn't malfunction in such a very specific way. Allura had told him Coran's grandfather himself had built it for Alfor—

Wait. Hadn't he once heard something about old Altean traditions?

He didn't know Coran very well, but he seemed very much a traditionalist. Perhaps he still lived by the system of guardians and recommendations.

Oh by Oriande. That had to be it. How could he let the quintessence get to his head?

The Alteans on his colony didn't follow them anymore, but of course, Allura and Coran were from 10.000 years ago. _They_ might care just because it was a part of their culture, however backwards some parts of it were.

He could just imagine the old man throwing a fit before insisting the uncouth youth be isolated while Allura got an old fashioned lecture. And maybe Allura herself was bypassing quintessence overload and realizing she'd gone against her traditions.

Were they really grounding him?

Well. This was certainly degrading.

But nothing he couldn't sit out.

Honestly, he'd sat out their first cell. This was a joke compared.

It shouldn't feel like Zarkon or Haggar loomed over him.

Surely in no time someone would remember they had a war and a coalition to run and get Coran back to his senses.

He sat down.

Allura needed more than such traditions. He had one thing better, but it was also worse for him. He still didn't know how to tell her of the Altean colony. He wouldn't for a while, not until ...

He didn't actually want to sit it out. Not in this suffocating cell.

Room. It was a room.

The door stayed shut.

He didn't _have_ to sit it out.

It was an old habit to sit back when his father chastised him, but this wasn't the same. Coran wouldn't do anything bad if he was displeased.

Just the lights off, the door shut. Confined.

That was a thing of the past.

And we'd gone through the quantum abyss, it had been in his future too. Stark white cells and he couldn't get up. Stark white, until his eyes had melted shut.

He'd only sat for seconds, but restlessness drove him to his feet.

He made double sure the samples were secure and their shields on their own power source before going to the door.

Wrenching his claws into the edge gave him grip, and he forced the door open.

The halls outside were also darkened. He went back to grab a lantern of his own tools.

A quick check of further rooms revealed the same all over. No technology was online at all.

His flimsy concerns forgotten, Lotor ran straight for the bridge, the most likely place for them to be. His worries of rift trouble returned to the forefront of his mind.

He got lost. The paladins had never given him a thorough tour of the castle ship.

So it came to be he was found instead.

Shiro emerged from the shadow, right into the light of his lantern.

The greeting and inquiry died on his tongue when he saw the Altean Shiro pulled along. A familiar face, and no doubt from his Altean colony.

"What is going on?" Lotor asked.

The Altean looked furiously at Lotor, but her posture didn't quite match; Shiro had her in a vice like grip.

"This here is going on. You've been compromised," Shiro said. "It's better that you leave."

"Compromised?"

This could mean two things : the actual colony had been found including the moon facility, or worse, Haggar had found the colony and sent a clone.

"Shiro, you can't trust her. Haggar has the ability to create mind controlled clones, she'd already done it to one of my generals. Perhaps she even is the one behind this ship being shut down. We must find Allura, she may be a target."

"No, I've temporarily shut down the ship so you can make a quick exit," Shiro said. "Allura is aware of the dead Alteans, you have no hope of alliance with her anymore."

"There must be a way. Let me talk to Allura."

"She won't hear you out," Shiro said.

Lotor pushed past him to that door, but but Shiro grabbed him by the arm and violently shoved him back.

He stood his ground for a moment, and so did Shiro. "Do not presume to command me. You have my respect as the leader of Voltron, but a pilot cannot presume to estimate the dire political situation. Should Allura break alliance with me, this will have consequences for both the empire and the coalition that you cannot begin to imagine."

"It will be worse if they come out on top," Shiro said. "Retreat while you can. I know Allura, she will not be reasoned with."

"Why are you helping him get away?" the Altean said.

"Shut up," Shiro told her.

"Let her go," Lotor said. "Regardless of what accusations have been made, she is one of my citizens and you will not handle her in such a manner."

"We are not yours!" she spat, but it came out weak when Shiro's grip tightened.

"Don't you understand?" Shiro said. "You've been treated like trash since you came here. They didn't let you speak to the coalition before you killed Zarkon. I was the only one who cared for your life when Zarkon demanded that exchange. You must trust me when I say you are in danger. They _already_ took her word over yours."

"She knows nothing of what she speaks."

"But Keith and Krolia do," Shiro said. His voice became colder the longer he spoke. "They brought her here. I entrusted you with my bayard, and it accepted you. On the sacred power of Altea, take my word that you must leave."

"I appreciate your concern, but no."

He moved past Shiro, only to be thrown. The world spun, the Altean girl screamed, and the lantern clattered down.

In the dark, two thin lights over him.

Lotor felt it at the same time as he saw the unnatural shine in Shiro's pupils. The hidden simmer of power leaking out through the eyes and into the man's aura.

He stood up tall against his new enemy. The shell blocked his path, and the Galra arm powered up for a fight. The black bayard in the other hand, meaningless as anything but a weapon.

He knew the trick of entities in shells, he'd learned it across the thousands of years the witch had haunted the world, and he'd learned to stop seeing a person and start seeing a witch's familiar.

The real Shiro would already be dead. Like Narti.

He mourned in silence and drew his sword.

 **· · · · · · ·**


	3. use the wolf, luke

**· · · · · · ·**

Allura was about to start prying the slashed door open when Krolia said, "Our wolf can teleport, leave it closed for safety."

"Really? So we can just teleport right to wherever Lotor is and take him in? Awesome," Hunk said. "Glad we can avoid a big robo fight. I mean, not that going all Voltron on stuff isn't cool sometimes but y'know, nobody even at risk dying is cooler."

"You could have mentioned teleportation before I busted my door," Allura said.

"We don't know where Lotor is though," Keith said. "And the wolf needs an idea of where to go. This castle is unfamiliar."

"So what are we calling the wolf?" Lance asked.

"Not now, Lance," Keith said.

"Right, we need to focus on arresting Lotor. Keith, Lance, follow me," Allura said. "Hunk, guard Pidge. Lotor knows she's our tech master and will expect her to work against whatever he did. We should presume Lotor has back up forces ready to aid him, who may board any time now."

"I'm on it," Hunk said. "Coran, you with me?"

"But princess, if this is truly an invasion, you should hide until the castle is ours again," Coran said. "Or at least go to the lions."

"Let's get to our lions and circle the castle, so if he tried to get off we'll catch him," Keith said.

"Shouldn't we get our hangar uninvaded first?" Lance said. "It's easier if we don't have to deal with Lotor's three freaky ships out there."

"This doesn't add up," Krolia said. "If Lotor meant to kill us, he would not have gone to the laboratory but have excused himself with ship maintenance. We may have a third party on the scene. Pidge—did I get that right?— can you find Lotor's exactly location?"

"No time, send it to us on the way," Keith said.

"Can't. Regular communication has been jammed," Pidge said. "There's a distortion field generated by the castle itself. I can't even find Lotor's location."

Allura held out her arm so her space mice could crawl on it. "They'll accompany you. I will hear whatever you say."

The four mice crawled onto the shoulders of the other four paladins. Keith and Lance switched their bayards into blasters, and Krolia took out her own.

They were ready to face Lotor. Allura wasn't, but that didn't matter in light of everything. Of her people, and their survival. In light of the universe, she and her concerns were small.

 **· · · · · · ·**

At home people had been thought to fight in case of a Galra invasion, but it had never been more than a sport. This was no sport.

Romelle could barely see anything, let alone interpret their moves. Lotor had no weapon anymore, while Shiro had a glowy thing that kept changing shape and that purple arm. What kept Lotor afoot for so long was his agility and no doubt experience, he could block Shiro and dodge with expertise Shiro lacked; even her not that trained eye could tell.

Lotor was old enough to be that good, and she feared he might win even in this. She wanted him to lose, would've sped it along, but didn't dare to get involved in the fight; she wasn't even sure Shiro was actually on her side.

Or that of the paladins. The castle's walls melted and boiled every time Shiro touched it by accident. It was only a matter of time until —

Lotor screamed when Shiro's white hot hand flayed over his upper arm. The stench hit Romelle full force, and she stepped back.

For a moment Lotor fell back, but returned more furious when he tackled Shiro in the stomach. They fell back, untangled and ended up facing each other again.

Both furious, both exhausted, but in Shiro's case that meant he switch on what Romelle guessed was a ranged weapon.

"Move!" Lotor yelled, doing so himself.

Romelle didn't wait. She ran, heard the rising noise, and duck on instinct.

A searing hot ray melted through the floor, all the way up into the walls and ceiling.

All the way. Air rushed into the void.

Bleary, she looked back. Shiro had grazed more off of Lotor's arm; the gauntlet was a melted mess. Lotor himself looked more worn down that seemed possible; Romelle only knew him as the perfect pillar.

When Shiro came at Lotor, he lost footing in the draft. Right then, Lotor slammed his claws in the walls and set his other in Shiro's back plate. This way he hurled Shiro into the draft, grabbed Romelle's arm and ran down the hall.

Panic didn't get her anywhere when she didn't know whom to be scared of more.

They reached a half closed door. Lotor let go after they passed it, sinking both hands into the metal to close it. His injured arm strained against the pain. "Help out!"

Down the darkened hall, Shiro came running. The tiny spots of purple light stood out to her; none of the other humans had them, not even Shiro just before. More importantly, he was going to get Lotor off the ship, away from justice.

Romelle set her hands against the metal, her fingers denting into the metal. Lotor put all his force on his side of the door.

They shut it just as Shiro slammed into it. Using his claws, Lotor cut and twisted the metal around the lock.

As he backed off, the metal started heating. Romelle would have asked what was up with that arm, but Lotor was already dragging her down another hall.

They ran, very loudly, until they reach a hall with multiple doors. One of them had to be an exit for people, but he passed it up. At the end of the hall, he tore open a manuel control panel and did something with the wires.

Romelle peered back into the dark, her heart pounding.

Just what was going on? Why did Shiro act like that? The fond way Keith had spoken of his mentor didn't match up with anything she'd just seen of him.

Her attention snapped back to the present when all doors opened, then shut again. It repeated a few times, before he put a thin device back into his gauntlet.

"This will buy us some time, but it won't be long until he figure out it was a hardware trick. Get ready to run."

"Again?"

But they were already going, right through a door that open like the others and then shut. This time, it shut with a loud click, joined by similar sounds beyond it.

Barely had they stopped, or Lotor tore the sleeve off his arms, the melted one he tossed and the clean scrap he used to tie the injury. Romelle he ignored entirely now.

She'd imagined to see him dead within a day of arriving, or at least imprisoned. Fleeing with him didn't have a place in that! Why wasn't this anything like the visions she'd seen?

Once he was done, he asked, "Where did you last see Allura?"

"What do you need that girl for?"

"She is the Allura, daughter of Alfor and your princess. Do not speak of her as a mere child."

"Are you kidding me?" Romelle didn't even want to help herself now. "You were killing us for quintessence, defeated Zarkon without telling us, kept hiding us, and now I'm supposed to respect some long gone royalty? The one you didn't want to know about us?"

Lotor had exactly two expressions whenever she's seen him : proud smiling and stern staring, both weak. Now he looked pained and she hated it, because he was a monster and this was a mask and she didn't even know why he did it. Whatever it was.

A bigger fool might call it guilt.

"You don't know what you speak of." That still was the commanding voice she knew well.

"Maybe I would know more if you did any kind of speaking with substance. I would love to know why you murdered my brothers—"

"Your brothers may not be dead yet," Lotor said. "I will not deny many have died, but those—"

"I have seen the pods, you call that life?"

"Your princess might be able to revive them," he said.

"Why would I trust anything you say?"

He didn't answer that. In fact, he started completely ignoring her now. Romelle fumed inward, but was at loss of anything else to do. She didn't have directions, she didn't want to provoke Lotor into shooting her.

Why was he taking her along anyway? It couldn't be good, but what was she going to do about it? As part Galra, he was stronger than her, and he was a warrior.

Those paladins better start moving.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Lance could kick himself in the head for ever having trusted Lotor. How could he have been so stupid, he had more reason than anyone to distrust him.

Allura led the way, always strong and enduring, Keith still obnoxious except with a mom and a teleporting wolf because of course he did.

Between himself and the other three, well, four if the wolf was counted, he was the only ordinary human. Hanging back for distant cover would be his best shot, so him being the best shot anyway was for the best.

That didn't make using the distraction of the wolf and the others to crawl out of a small maintenance hatch any better.

The others entered through the main gate, Allura with her whip already out and deflecting gunfire.

Keith and his wolf teleported into the blue haired pretty girl's cockpit and — why wasn't she taken out yet?

The heaviest of Lotor's generals came out, all too eager to challenge Allura. Lance tried to get a clear shot at her, but that ran the risk of hitting Allura. Getting someone to teleport his target away would be handy about now.

The red one with the ponytail, or whatever it was, moved closer to the cockpit of one of Lotor's ships, Krolia in pursuit but unable to get in the way. The entrance was open.

And of course Keith was still having a passionate duel on top of the ship with the blue haired girl. As in, not using his wolf right now.

The wolf was just randomly teleporting over the battlefield, sometimes helping, but really having no clue what to do with all this.

When the wolf sparkled into being nearby Lance, he whispered, "Hey, you, fluffy, get me into the red one's cockpit."

The wolf just tilted its head curiously.

It was so tempting to shout a quiznak or two at Keith, but he kept quiet.

Lance peeked from under the craft, to see whether Keith had his act together already.

Nope, still dueling. They'd even started talking to her now. Keith, being talkative? Was this because he liked her? Was this _flirting_?

Seriously, Lotor knew how to pick his crew to fit, what with the weird ass half Galra attraction thing. Even Keith was falling for the enigmatic mixed Galra charms, despite being one himself.

Speaking of that, where was Lotor anyway?

Lance rolled from below the craft and off the platform, before quietly passing to the other end of the hall. Without sight, his best shot was listening.

Allura was fight the big one, Krolia had the smaller red one.

No Lotor around them. None at either the big entrance or the smaller service hatch either.

"Lotor's not here!" Lance called.

Keith's wolf finally got to teleporting, just to bring Keith down. Before Lance could wonder why, laserfire scorched the nearby wall and came down to his toes.

One of Lotor's ships rose up, aiming at them.

"Wolf, get Keith into the cockpit of that thing!" Lance snapped.

The last lights went off, and the wolf whined.

"Can't, he needs line of sight," Keith said.

Lotor's ships sure didn't need light to use their scanners though, cause the fire kept coming.

"Retreat!" Allura called.

Gladly. Lance ran after the others back down the maintenance hatch, into the pitch black of the ship.

 **· · · · · · ·**

This wasn't getting them anywhere. Allura focused on Chulatt, hoping Pidge would get things running soon.

The spectra generator, stabilizers and main turbine all went down. The Crystal matrix, the particle barrier were hot on that trail, and Pidge's quarantine _failed_.

"What? How? The virus has countermeasures that specifically targeted my quarantine! It's like it knew," Pidge muttered.

"It's going to get worse," Allura said. The teludav's mess regulator is shutting down, and this ship and everything in the neighboring subsystem will be destroyed."

"What the quiznak?" Lance said. "He's crazy, he'll blow himself up if this goes on!"

"I am ready to discuss a third party any time now. In fact, let's make it now," Krolia said. "At the Kral Zera, those three were with Haggar. Princess Allura, I must express my concerns for your presence. You should be near the escape pods."

"No. This is _my_ responsibility."

"I assure you all the people who will die if the coalition loses its leader will not care. Should anything take you out of commission, it is not merely the weapon that loses a pilot. You are irreplaceable as the head of the coalition and pilot of this warship, wormholes included."

"Don't forget the alchemy thing," Lance said. "You're the only one who could create a new Voltron."

"You can create ... " Krolia started. "Can you remote control the lions? If that were possible, you could steer them to the hangar entrance and give us a hand."

For a time, the lion could move independently. Why not, actually? She hadn't tried before, but it _should_ be possible. Maybe even like herself with her mice.

The knowledge didn't just come to her though, the way she expected it to be. "I will try."

"Can we go now?" Keith said. "Shiro's out there alone."

 **· · · · · · ·**

When Shiro arrived, the hangar lay still. He shut his entrance using the virus code and lit up his arm. The Sincline ships lay still in place, until the hatches opened each.

"Hey there!" Ezor, he knew now.

"You don't have Lotor?" Zethrid said. "Where is he?"

"He escaped," Shiro said. "What happened here?"

"The paladins came here, but we drove them off and your program locked the door. Want us to deal with them?"

"No, get the ships ready and ward them off if they enter," Shiro said. "One of you comes with me to pretend to work for Lotor, should we come across the paladins. I'll feign alliance with them to help secure Lotor."

Axca leaped off her claimed ship.

"Anything else, Haggar?" Ezor asked.

"No," he said, or she did, and he couldn't fight it.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Allura sat in the dark alone, trying to reach for the lions. Though their lifeforce was clear in her mind, their voices were not. That they had such distinct voices hadn't even occurred to her; she'd engaged with them before as inspirational rather than fellow beings.

Chulatt still peered over Pidge's shoulder, so the moment Pidge froze in shock, Allura paid attention.

"It's _Shiro_ ," Pidge whispered.

None of her mice had hearing problems, but now she had to wonder. Shiro would never betray them.

"What? How do you know?" Hunk asked.

"The protocol's countermeasure, it was like the code I scanned from Shiro's arm while we were looking for Galra installations."

Shiro? That wasn't possible, Shiro would never—

Shiro had disappeared from Black's cockpit and returned escaping from a Galra laboratory. Or had he?

She could know, if she wanted to. The potential lay in her, instinctive knowledge raised now she needed it, the ability to touch souls.

Forget hanging back. There was only one person aboard the ship with the power of Oriande, if she willed it and had the potential, she could find out what was happening.

 **· · · · · · ·**

His wolf found the scent of Shiro soon enough; smart beast remembered him before before.

Shiro ran through the halls, checking doors at almost random until he spotted Keith and the others.

"What happened?" Keith asked.

"Romelle slipped out. I followed her to persuade her not to do anything rash. She wouldn't listen," Shiro said. "When we came across Lotor, he took her hostage. I just barely got away."

Plachu jumped off Keith's shoulder, sniffing the air before running off. It must've caught Lotor's scent on Shiro, or maybe it followed Romelle.

Shiro briefly looked at Keith's wolf but didn't ask. He followed the mouse, and Keith followed him.

The mice led them nearer to the laboratory. Lotor had to be going for the samples he'd brought aboard.

Shiro led, and Keith followed easily. Despite the turmoil, it was a relief to be back as his right hand.

They rounded a corner, and there Lotor was by the laboratory door. Romelle stood far from him, unrestrained but not running; perhaps too afraid.

Lotor had tied up one of his arms and the scent of scorched flesh was thick in the air. Shiro could heat up his hand enough to melt metal, but to think he'd used it on someone alive made Keith pause.

Lotor's ear twitched, and he turned towards them.

A thick silence fell, before he said, "Paladins, I have no intention to attack. Hear me out."

Keith forced his bayard into a blade. "Lance, cover us."

Krolia's hand descended on his shoulder, stepping before Keith.

"Surrender, and there will be no fight," she called down the hall.

"I'm afraid that will not be possible," Lotor said. "You have been compromised. Now you must understand cannot just lose its emperor without there being consequences. Stand back and tell Allura to look at Shiro."

"We're not standing back for anyone!" Keith snapped. "Least of all you. We've seen what you've done to the Alteans, why would we trust you?"

Krolia pushed him back further.

"It is true there will be a great problem if you vanish now, emperor Lotor," Krolia said. "But surely you can imagine we are equally fearful of what may happen if you were to say, dispose of Voltron now you do not need them anymore? Surrender, and we will work from there."

"What are you doing?" Lance said. "He's just trying to trick us into letting our guard down again!"

Keith considered defying his mother, but didn't need to. Shiro pushed past them all and aimed his bayard — a blaster now — at Lotor.

Lotor dodged, during which Shiro closed the distance impressively fast. Keith barely kept up.

Taking advantage of Lotor's injured side, Shiro came at him so he could grab Lotor's wrist when he swung to block. Keith grabbed his other arm and Krolia knocked him to his knees.

Lance tossed shackles to Keith, who quickly clicked them around Lotor's wrists. That done, Shiro pulled him back to his feet.

Lotor faced Keith. "You're making a mistake, red paladin. This is not—"

"Shut up," Shiro said harsher than Keith had ever heard him.

"Hey Romelle, you can relax now," Lance said somewhere behind him. "We got it all under control."

"Don't listen to him, he wanted Lotor to escape!"

"He threatened to kill her people remotely if she did not back him," Shiro said calmly.

"We'll send the Blade of Marmora into the quantum abyss right away," Keith said. "And Lotor back to his cell."

Lotor said nothing, only glared in that cold way. Shiro took him by the arm and started leading him along.

Right then, Allura's mice started freaking out; Plachu even jumped on Keith's shoulder and signed for him to move.

"Come on, we better escort Lotor," Keith said. Lance and Krolia fell in line, but Keith's wolf didn't.

Weirdly enough, the wolf stared at Plachu, then the other mice, then slowly looked up at Shiro and Lotor. The wolf's ears flattened.

"Keith, open the door," Shiro said, nodding at the gate behind them. It'd lead them too close to the hangar and Lotor's generals were still on the loose.

"Isn't there a quicker way to the cell?" Krolia asked.

"That way got damaged in the fight when I overcharged my arm," he said calmly.

"That's what the ray was?" Lance said. "You gotta let Hunk look at that, you nearly blew up the ship."

"I will, just open the door."

Lance brushed past them and slammed him hand on the control panel. When that didn't work, he shot it.

Shiro pulled Lotor along, and Keith was about to join when Allura's voice rang out, "Stop!"

 **· · · · · · ·**

Shaking his entourage would've been a problem for Shiro, but doable. Allura was a far bigger threat.

Both Allura and Lotor froze when they saw each other, but tension was not just between them. Allura's gaze shifted to Shiro, softer now but just as weary.

"Someone else hold Lotor. Shiro, I need to check something."

His friend and commander. An obstacle. The commands were set.

Krolia and Hunk moved to hold to Lotor, and Allura's hand raised towards him.

 _She_ knew what the princess meant to do, and it wasn't allowed to happen.

Slice her up? No, she stood in the hangar's direction.

His bayard turned into a blade and he hurled it at her. She dodged, rolled over and tackled him. Lotor fell away.

In the turmoil he lost track of everything. Shouting and walls surrounded him, and the rising urgency of her commands.

When he found his bearing, he saw Krolia lead Lotor down the _wrong_ hall, while Lance wanted Keith to send his wolf.

Allura grabbed him by the collar, hauling him up while her free hand came to his head. Keith held his other arm, said something he couldn't hear through his ringing ears.

He kicked Allura in the stomach, threw Keith aside and ran at his target. Krolia turned on her axis, but her fault lay in not letting Lotor go. He set his arm to burning heat and melted the gun. She dodged his first blow, but he got her arm and just held, letting the heat get into her flesh. She staggered back.

Lotor let himself fall back, creating just enough space to kick him away. When buckled forward. Lotor swiping his fists up from below, hitting him from the chin up.

His head snapped back so hard, he blacked out for a second. _She_ pulled him back and forced his body in shape. He rolled onto his side, back up, so fast Lotor couldn't re-calibrate.

Shiro grabbed his leg and slammed him injured arm first against the wall. Ugh, he was still awake, so he grabbed his head and rammed it against the ground. It knocked him out at last, but bending down wasn't the best idea : from behind, something wrapped around his own leg.

Next moment he sailed through the hall, catching a glimpse of Allura and her whip.

When he landed, he scrambled right back to his feet. A memory surfaced; she had thrown him before. Then she'd looked upon him with a sad smile, now betrayal was all over her.

It almost mattered, but not enough. _She_ wanted Lotor, and now the princess stood between Shiro and his target. Altea's wayward daughter.

Who still had her whip around his leg.

The very second he moved toward Lotor, she swung him further down the hall.

Landing on his mechanic arm, he was right back on his feet.

Lance fired a warning shot at his feet, and Krolia ignored her broken arm to aim her blaster.

"Shiro! What are you doing?" Keith was the only one whose weapon was still down.

The betrayal in their eyes pulled at him, but he had a mission and they got in the way. _She_ provided him all the hatred he needed.

"Hurry up!" Ezor called from down the hall. "Uh, Lotor? We gotta leave."

The one benefit was that right now, he didn't face the hangar anymore. He powered up his arm, ready to slice down whomever got in his way. Lotor lay knocked out on the ground and—

Next to Lotor, out of thin air appeared the wolf, with Plachu between the ears. The mouse saluted before tapping the wolf's head, and they vanished with Lotor.

What.

This didn't just happen.

Why did the wolf teleport.

Lotor was nowhere to be seen, who knew where on the ship that beast had taken him. How long it'd take to find him again.

And Allura was coming at him once more.

The risks wasn't his own to calculate, all he had to do was obey. Right now, they could not have the trans reality ships too. Lotor would come to get them eventually. He let himself hate what had to be left behind, it was easier not to fight anymore, and turned away.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Shiro ... got away with the ships. It wasn't the first time an adventure had unfolded without clear victory, or even the first time they'd lost Shiro, but this was something else. Shiro dying was terrible, but Shiro having come back like this ... he didn't know how to feel about it.

All they had to show for today was a functional gate and an unconscious emperor.

Amidst the chaos, the lights turning back on were just a quiet afterthought even though it meant Pidge had saved the entire castle and every bit of their lives. Lance would've thanked her, but Hunk probably had that covered, and Allura, who'd run off to the control room too.

Keith and Krolia went to find the wolf and Lotor, because Keith hadn't actually taught that fetch meant one had to return the target to the commander. Lance would've loved to give him a hard time about that, if not for what had just gone down with Shiro.

He followed Keith and Krolia until they found the wolf and Lotor in a random storage room.

Krolia checked up on Lotor's vitals, determined he was alive but the injury needed treatment, and so Lance contacted Pidge through his helmet; communication was online again too.

While they waited for someone to retrieve, Keith started pacing. Guessing why was easy.

It started to sink in there really had been something wrong with Shiro.

It started to sink in he could have done something about it.

The fifth wheel at least didn't get in the way, usually, but this ...

Keith kept pacing. His mother stood by, arms crossed not unlike Keith, but she was calm where Keith brimmed with energy.

"We _need_ to go after them already, let someone else guard Lotor. What's Allura thinking, keeping us here?" Keith said.

"We need to keep calm and not rush into anything," Krolia said.

"They must have blackmailed Shiro somehow, and they might try it with us. Whatever they have over him must be important."

And more pacing until Lance couldn't stand it anymore. Usually that meant snapping at Keith, but now it was about Shiro.

"I don't think that was him," Lance said softly.

Keith's eyes snapped to him, and Lance almost regretted saying it.

"What do you mean?"

"When we were on the astral plane, Shiro tried to tell me something, but failed," Lance said. "So I asked him about it once we got back and he didn't remember. But he said he didn't feel like himself ... I brushed it off."

Before Keith got a word in, Krolia stepped up.

"I will make a report later and run it by the Marmorian library to see whether we have any similar cases in the past. If you could type down as much as you remember, that would be very helpful."

"Sure, I bet I'll have time soon." It wasn't like he had any important tasks aside of being a pilot of Voltron, and once they got Shiro back — he refused to consider the alternatives — there'd be no shortage of those.

Keith had started pacing near the door, but at one point stopped to stare down the hall.

"Keith, don't," Lance said. "Allura said we'd make plans together, later."

"That might be too late for Shiro."

"No, you are not pulling the disappearing stunt again!" Lance snapped, but it was Krolia was quick enough to block the exit.

"You don't even know where to go," she said. "This ship was tracking methods, an Altean alchemist, and a scientific genius. You don't even have a few weeks of experience with spy work. The resources we need are here. Understood?"

Keith clenched his fists, but kept his mouth.

Lance couldn't resist. "You can use the meantime to train your wolf better. Really, you were out there two years and he still can't play fetch right?"

"At least I wasn't cozying up to Lotor!"

"What? That—what the—Don't change the topic!"

Krolia once again came between them, and Keith slunk off to brood against a wall with his arms crossed.

"Don't worry about that," Krolia said. "I'm sure you know how much Shiro means to him."

"Are you kidding? I've been putting up with Keith aplenty, I can deal with his moods." Lance pulled the rest of his bravado back in place and added, "Let's just fix this. I'm sure Allura can track him somehow, she's got a lot of fancy new magic since Oriande."

"Oriande?" Krolia asked. "What is that?"

"Oh, some magical mumbo jumbo that she learned," Lance said. "Lotor tried the same thing but got rejected."

"Hmm. Do you consider everything supernatural mumbo jumbo?"

Lance shrugged. "Depends. Why?"

"Oh, no particular reason," Krolia lied. "I think I hear a pod drifting this way, let's clear the room."

 **· · · · · · ·**

The first thing Lotor noticed upon waking was the moving floor below him, the bands around his wrists and the hold on his armor's collar. He didn't panic, feigned still to be unconscious.

The shadow of a floating pod crossed his line of sight, a hand on his arm, and he was raised. The moment he could get his feet below himself, he kicked free. Rolling back, he returned to his feet and glared around.

Opposite him wasn't the witch or anything Galra, but the paladins of Voltron.

Allura had been about to load him into a pod, but now she'd taken her whip bayard out.

It felt so long ago that Allura had looked at him with this much distrust.

"I only did so to defeat Zarkon. A few thousand lives to save millions," he said, dragging up the most important words from the muck of his quintessence muddled mind. Or maybe that was just the headache from the fight.

"So it is true."

They hadn't been sure before? He could have weedled himself out of this if he'd just waited. There wasn't time, soon the empire would notice his absence, he'd given them an estimation of his return. He needed to make the best of this.

"Allura, I know this must all come across in the worst ways, but our goals remain the same. We want peace for the universe."

She would have argued at once, he was sure, had she not been so tired.

Allura lowered her bayard. "If that is true, then you will stand down until we know exactly what to expect of you."

He eyed the pod. It was one of the sick bay. He wasn't likely to end up in a torture rack or experimental facility, and if he wanted to be of any use he did need his arm healed. But this also gave them ample opportunity to drug him. Perhaps he could talk himself out of this, convince her yet they both benefited from their continued alliance.

"Let me have my dignity and walk there," he said. She did want to hear, and surely she understood time was imperative.

"Don't do it, it's a trap," Lance said.

"What trap would I lay like this? I have no back up, no weapons, and I am injured."

Allura raised the pod so the head end floated upward. "Step in."

"Allura, please hear me out first," he said, hating how his voice lost composure but hating more that she didn't budge. "It's true that—"

"Get. In. The. Pod." She walked around and he turned along, until he stood between her and the pod. " _Now_."

"What happened to the gate? Is it still whole?"

"Yes." Hand on his chestplate, she pushed him back until he was in the pod. "Once you're healed, we're going to talk about how to do the same for my people still on your moon facility."

 **· · · · · · ·**


	4. somehow i am still writing

**· · · · · · ·**

Allura sat alone on the bridge, hunched forward as she over and over shifted through the recordings.

The shriveled bodies of her people, ghosts of a long gone civilization. Any wild fantasy of finding survivors now withered along with them. That it had to be _this_ way.

That it had to be at the hands of one whom she had found solace with.

None of those feelings were allowed to matter in light of the decision she had to make, which came down to why he had preserved these bodies.

If it was only as scraps for future experiments, then letting him free would be as good as leading the coalition down a gaping maw. He'd probably back-stab them again the moment he'd secured the rift with his forces and there would be a war. He only choice was how _vulnerable_ they were in this war.

If he ever intended to revive and release them though, that was another story. He couldn't be trusted to tell the whole truth and he might sacrifice people, but he might not be interesting in sacrificing everyone immediately, right now.

She couldn't gamble the safety of billions of people on a guess. They needed to know the truth about who Lotor really was, and to what extent his evil went.

The doors of the seating room opened, and in stepped Hunk and Lance. Allura at last tore herself from the recordings. Quickly she shoved the tablet aside and stood.

"How is the castle?"

"I'm gonna need some more time to patch that hole," Hunk said. "It went through a lot of rooms, pipes, and the wall bots that usually fix the simple stuff. Anyway, here's something you gotta see.:

On the table, Hunk laid down a melted blob that only dimly resembled Lotor's sword.

"I found it when I tracked the origins of Shiro's ray."

"You should put it with whatever else of his possessions we confiscated." The unspoken was that she didn't want to be reminded of him any more than necessary.

"He wasn't headed for the hangar, from the looks of it."

"So he got lost, big deal," Lance said.

"I'm just saying it's weird," Hunk said. "If we can't trust Shiro, how can we trust anyone else we see? Hey, what if Keith is a clone too? You did say he looked hotter, right?"

"I said _grizzled_! It's not the same!"

"Whatever, man."

She wanted to cover her ears, tune it, but no. Duty called. She stood tall.

The next time the doors open, Keith and Krolia brought in Romelle. She looked rather miffed.

"Why am I being detained?"

"We just have some questions," Allura said. "Did Lotor actually take you hostage, or was this a lie?"

"I'm not sure," Romelle said. "I don't think your Shiro minded what happened to me though."

"Let's put it differently: did Lotor ever tell Shiro anything like how you'd die if he moved?"

"Well, no. Shiro just kept coming at us. Why is this important? They're both traitors!"

Krolia held up her hand. "I get the impression Shiro intended to kidnap Lotor, not kill him. He could have taken a shuttle outside and sliced up the castle from there. Lotor himself seemed less than keen to be taken."

Allura looked back at the melted sword. Shiro had pulled out the death ray right at the first encounter, uncaring for the ship, or anyone he might hurt in the process.

"Did Lotor try to kill Shiro?" Allura asked, nodding at the sword.

"He lost that early on, but he was taking a heavy swing right at Shiro. I don't know, maybe he was trying to make him dodge, but Shiro blocked it instead and he didn't expect that. Then the sword got melted. Why is this important?"

"We're trying to figure out what happened. Next question. Where was Lotor heading?"

"How am I supposed to know? It was dark and unfamiliar."

Fair enough.

As part Galra, Lotor was even stronger than an Altean. A human like Shiro shouldn't have been difficult to deal with, Galra arm non withstanding. Either Lotor had underestimated the arm or he wasn't quite as human.

Pidge entered at last, back from running diagnostics on isolated parts of the ship. She wasn't able to tell more of the virus other than it was of Galra origin, but adhered to some Alteans principles too. Whether those were adjustments or origin she didn't know.

"I suppose you don't know more about Shiro either?" Keith asked. "Anything why he'd act the way he seems to have?"

"Yeah. Like, if he'd been blackmailed he would've left some sign for us, right?" Hunk said.

"Let's go all out on a limb," Pidge said. "Shiro's either mind controlled or he's not the real Shiro. We still don't know what happened between disappearing from the black lion's cockpit and ending up in a Galra lab."

"I was going to find out." Allura stepped to the center of the platform. "When I was in Oriande, I was told I already had the power within me. It was unlocked when I ... " Did she want to share this sacred moment with them, when she could never do it justice in words and they could never understand? "I don't know my potential until I wander into it. I would not have noticed anything wrong with Shiro if I wasn't looking for it, but I think I can do so now. I want to check all of you for anything suspicious."

Coran went first, then Lance, Hunk and Pidge. She skipped her mice, they were mind linked and that she would notice. As she put her fingers to their temples, they glowed, but didn't engulf.

She found souls veiled in quintessence, firm for Pidge and Hunk. Lance still tied to the blue lion. Coran had little quintessence to lean on, but came with ancient familiarity; with him she caught fragments of memories.

Keith was a little irritable to be tested. In him Galra blood and human blood mingled. A tie to quintessence beyond that of his tie to the red lion, and loose wire to the black lion. Something was strange about the latter, almost fragile and impossible to hold on its own. Yet the black lion held on.

Krolia was all Galra, and infused with their kind of quintessence. It wasn't much, but the root of Keith's unusual quintessence lay within her. Of all she'd tried, Krolia was the most distant, if quintessence could be called such.

"I believe you are all who you present as," Allura said, and was at loss where to go next.

Shiro was gone. Lotor wasn't reliable.

The opinions of the paladins were clear. They had all once been eager and quick to hand Lotor to Zarkon, to his death. Allura herself had gone along with this, understanding Pidge's longing for her father and her distrust of Lotor, but now everything was different.

The political reasons were the only ones allowed to matter. Her feelings might skewer her judgment, even if they seemed to say something good.

"Krolia, what do you think?" Allura asked; for lack of a more distant party.

"I believe your plans to investigate the quantum abyss and your people should proceed, but with precautions. Either Lotor is playing a bizarre scheme, or there is a third party attempting to manipulate us. For the thieves to arrive by the same time as we did, right during Romelle's report, is a mathematical absurdity that I cannot even imagine—"

"I can give you a number of the odds," Pidge piped up. "If you have a minute for me to calculate since it's going to be very small and I'm going to need data that isn't available on this ship. _Very_ small. Molecular."

All faces turned to Romelle.

"What?"

"She is rather conveniently timed for maximum political turmoil," Coran said. "Y'know back in the day we called this a ergybloop of faryurgist proportions."

Nobody else got that, though after a beat Pidge muttered a horrified, "The _emails_ ," for some reason.

Allura set her fingers on Romelle's head and found weak quintessence and ... and ... there wasn't anything wrong in particular. But something felt off, and she couldn't place what.

"Keith, please escort Romelle to a cell." Being mixed Galra, he'd be strong enough if she tried anything.

"What?" Romelle said.

"We have to be certain of all of our sources." Her eyes went back to the barely living Alteans in the pods. "If we want to save anyone at all."

 **· · · · · · ·**

The group fell apart once Keith and Romelle had left. Pidge back to her devices, Allura gazing at the stars with Coran at her side saying nothing meaningful, and Hunk and Lance hanging off to the side. She began to see how Keith could drift away so easily, and replaced by someone wrong without anyone beating an eye.

Among her time visions were visions of Sincline and Voltron fighting, tearing the fabric of reality. Avoiding that had been her immediate concern, but her options became more limited. The potential to share her visions had played, but soon snuffed out. Too much children here. She'd checked the entire ship by now, there were no signs of the coalition. They had no advisers, no consultation, no government of any kind. Not that she wanted to share her visions with strangers, but the absence of all that said something about how Voltron operated.

In due time, Lotor's crew sent a signal. It didn't immediately go on screen, waiting for permission.

When Allura seemed on the brink of doing that, Krolia stepped up. "You will not inform them you are at odds with Lotor, right?"

"I see little ways to avoid that in the long run," Allura said.

"He put his entire life and trust in your hands. He brought no praetorian guard and still operates as if he is a refugee," Krolia said. "Take advantage of that."

"Wow, we're so lucky that Lotor trusted us completely except about pile of bodies in his closet," Lance said. "Maybe he was just so arrogant he didn't think he'd need back up."

"You really are lucky," Krolia said. "Princess?"

"I'll suggest we're still on the same side." She gave the channel permission, and Krolia stepped out of view.

An unknown Galra appeared, stern as they usually were.

"Where is emperor Lotor? We have a few emergencies and he should be back by now."

"Where were attacked, during which part of our ship exploded," Allura said. "Emperor Lotor is currently recovering. Pidge, get a visual."

Pidge zoomed in on the medical wing's camera pointed at Lotor, cutting off the shackles before showing it.

"We will send assistance right away," he said. "What happened?"

"Don't," Allura said. "We were ambushed by Haggar's crew. We're ..."

"Currently performing an intense scan of the area to find any traces of the ship. If you enter now you'll throw my readings off," Pidge said. "It's pretty hard already to scan around this area. However, if you could circle our zone and be on the look out for any ships leaving that'd help a lot. They stole Lotor's ships."

"Yeah," Hunk said. "We had a pretty big explosion that Lotor got caught in cause you know, vrepit sa, he faced the attackers head on and they got all nervous so they did some, uh, really cowardly shit."

"We have our lions on stand by should there by any attack on the castle ship," Allura quickly added. "Rest assured emperor Lotor is secure."

"Understood. Keep us updated on the emperor's situation."

"I'm sending a status report right now," Pidge said, before disconnecting.

After having sent said report, Pidge said, "I feigned a bunch of broken bones and claimed it'll take two days to heal with our pods; that's below typical Galra healing of similar enough, but I can't make it longer or they'll be suspicious why we're not prioritizing his transfer to a safe zone."

"Good thinking, Pidge," Lance said. "Is that scan real?"

"You bet," she said. "In fact, if I can hook Lotor's incoming Galra ships onto it I can expand it. Shiro will be long gone, but the ore infused with Allura's quintessence causes a ripple effect in this fragile rift broken area."

Once more the group broke.

Hunk and Allura went to discuss Balmeras, Olkari and Teludavs. Coran hung around yet again, appearing to have no duties for the coalition. Pidge worked alone. Lance did nothing except look at the door.

And Keith still hadn't come back.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Lotor woke up before the healing process was done, mind straining against the numbing effect of the pod. He'd trained himself to defy similar if he needed to; that it had to be here had never been part of any plan.

Altean medicine was strong, and to his disappointment it wasn't himself who woke him. The pod went vertical and opened right away. He stumbled out, and almost failed to get his legs beneath him; his injury still singed.

Before him stood the lost black paladin.

He moved to ahead, but Keith tipped his gun up. "Stay put."

"There is no need for that, I have no interest in fighting you or any other paladin.

"Do you know anything about Shiro?" Keith asked. "Why did he do that?"

"Haggar," Lotor said. "She has the ability to clone people. I do not know how she does it, but the one you know as Shiro is gone."

"No. He's been himself all along, we'd be able to tell," Keith said. "He's in there. Has he been working with you? Did you disagree about something?"

"Before today I had no reason to believe he was anyone but the black paladin," Lotor said. "Haggar can even replicate their memories for optimal illusion. The real Shiro will have been disposed of already. If you pursue him, focus on getting back the Sincline ships. Do do not believe in the lie embodied."

"He's still in there," Keith said.

Ignorant kid.

"Did he ever disappear for a prolonged time? Or maybe he died in the arena, and who returned to earth never was the same."

Ah, the way his face hardened meant there _was_ something. If he could hold onto that and sow some doubt, it might benefit himself. But first, he had to cast some doubt elsewhere.

"There is rumor that Alfor didn't actually give up the black lion to Zarkon," Lotor said softly. "I never paid it heed, but it exists. The black lion rejected him. Perhaps it had misgivings about its new pilot too. Why did _you_ leave?"

Keith slammed him back into the pod. "That's none of your business!"

The lid slipped back in place and Keith stormed off. He forgot to properly turn the healing radiance back up, so Lotor was left to drift back to slumber slowly.

Well. That didn't quite go as planned. The conversation was supposed to go on, not cut off.

His Altean secret had sprung, and the leader of Voltron was one of Haggar's puppets. Short of Zarkon returning to life or a rift entity invasion, it couldn't be worse a surprise.

In retrospect, the sudden oppressive sense that had driven him from the laboratory should have been his first sign. Had he acted on it — had he been more aware of his magic — he could have counteracted better.

For the first time, he wondered he should have asked Allura what she'd done to be rewarded. He'd accepted his role and moved on, but ... should he have tried again? Could he have?

No, no use fretting. He had more urgent business.

If Shiro had been a puppet all along, then Haggar had helped Lotor to the throne. Her objections nothing but a farce, no, his ascension was part of her plan somehow. He needed the help of the paladins more than ever, or maybe Voltron _was_ the target.

Haggar's puppet could pilot Voltron. Zarkon not destroying the red lion when he had it made a terrifying amount of sense. They could be _tricked_ into obedience.

The minefield was far more complicated than he had adapted for.

 **· · · · · · ·**

When Keith joined the others on the bridge, the air was tense. Pidge typed frantically, while Krolia and Hunk had a hushed conversation about who other than Lotor. Allura stood by, gazing off into space. Lance hung around Coran, arguing quietly.

He approached Allura, as she had to affirm a plan for Shiro yet and it was taking too long.

"He keeps throwing all these grand statements at us that don't really tell us a lot," Hunk said. "Can that guy even talk without sound like he's giving a speech? Oh, hey Keith."

"He can, or at least, he seemed to be able to," Allura said.

"Can't we just put him on trial?" Hunk asked. "I heard something of the coalition working on a conjoined tribunal."

"Power vacuums are bad. I'm going to keep saying this until it sticks," Krolia said. "If you bring Lotor to court as a prisoner, you lose his entire side of the empire. They're not going to bow to an emperor who submits."

"So let's get rid of him and support some other Galra to ascend," Keith said. "What does it even matter who rules as long as they cooperate? Can we do this after we find Shiro?"

"No! If there is any chance we can preserve the alliance, we must take it!"

"You're just looking for reasons to keep your boyfriend in the clear!" Keith spat.

"Boyfriend? What even makes you presume?"

"Uuuuuh we saw you kiss," Hunk said.

" _What_?" Allura turned to Pidge.

"I didn't mean to spy!" Pidge said. "We just thought we're in another one of Lotor's schemes, so I turned on the cameras to find you. For all we knew he'd chucked you into the quintessence field now you ran out of use and was about to sell us a tragic story. He's tricked us before, you know it."

Allura tempered herself, just barely.

"I know. Whatever exists between Lotor and I will not get in the way. Neither of the coalition, nor of saving my people."

"It sure did come between you and Altean tradition, princess," Coran said. "You may not start any courting without approval of your guardian — me — having gone through a thorough background check complete with recommendations! To think, was there even

"Oh by Marmora, can we get back to the topic?" Krolia said, just shy of yelling. "The moment we destroy that gate and Lotor's faction arrives after we told them the enemy fled, they will see a coup. The coalition is already presumed to use Lotor as a puppet emperor. If we do reach the decision to depose of Lotor, we should do so in a way that doesn't implicate Voltron," Krolia said. "Do you all understand?"

She locked eyes with Keith in particular. He couldn't read her intent, but he didn't like where this was going.

"But—"

"And I propose that my son is not treated as a leader outside the battlefield. His advice is not sound."

How could she? The one time he _needed_ to be Voltron's leader, she'd undermine him?

"He was chosen by the black lion, and Shiro himself. We tried everyone else, only Keith was taken," Allura said, full of bitterness.

"Are your lions actually sapient, or only sentient? Do they understand more than pack work? The political ramifications of the galaxy that developed in the 10.000 years they were missing? Please, don't lay or entire future on the back of mere animals. My son hasn't got the slightest clue about politics or long term strategy."

Allura closed her eyes, hands clenched at her sides. Keith didn't know whether she'd cave, but the rest of the paladins had more doubt.

Hunk looked back and forth between everyone. Lance stared at the ground, not looking up or offering any input. Hmm. Probably just deciding how he could do this without losing Allura's favor. Keith half considered telling him he'd get her anyway and just make up his mind.

Indicative Pidge with her love for family had her hands on the keyboard, eyes on Keith, as she said, "Remember how the blue lion once made a wormhole from earth to Arus. Maybe I can replicate that to where ever Shiro went."

Krolia stood straight before Allura.

"Leader of the coalition, is _this_ your council? A bunch of children and an overzealous traditionalist?"

"Excuse you, we're the paladins of Voltron without whom this galaxy—" Lance started.

"You are soldiers, not politicians. Does the coalition have no say, so you may build another empire?"

"We have no such intentions," Allura said quickly. "But Voltron is guided by a mystical force—"

"To pilot!" Krolia said, harsher now. "And scarcely even that. Magic translates their intent, quintessence locks their designation. That is it. A superweapon only. They are not reliable support for any other cause.

Especially not your political cause. Why did it take them ten thousand years to choose someone? I stood before the blue lion, and my son was chosen, and everyone connected to him. Random chance only. They did not know what kind of person my son would become.

Here is something you must know : if not for my interference, my son would have not bothered to gather evidence, verify our witness, separate you from a potential threat, or tell you the moon facility had survivors."

At those last words, Allura's face turned to shock, then a deep scowl at Keith.

"Why would you leave out that I could still save my people?" Allura took a few steps in his direction. "You would have had me destroy the gate only to learn later I could have saved hundreds of my people with the quintessence from it?"

"Are we really going to let he gate open just to save a few hundreds, when Lotor could hurt billions with unlimited quintessence?" Keith snapped. "We should still destroy the gate."

"How we handle Lotor is decided by what we can expected of him!"

"Indeed," Krolia cut in. "Is our enemy pragmatic, or an omnicidal tyrant behind a front? If the latter, can we use the front to our benefit?"

Every word was sharp at Keith in particular.

"For the sake of the coalition, I recommend you give your military force, and children, no say in the determination of the future."

How could his own mother do this? Not now. Not about this.

"Keith, you are relieved from any commanding position," Allura said.

"You can't do this!" Keith snapped.

"The lions are _my_ property. I can, and I have. Unless there is a robot battle, your word means nothing and you are not my leader."

"I for one support the leader of the coalition," Krolia said dryly. "Anyone have a practical objection before I lay the case out before Kolivan? Something that isn't about the wishes of a man gone rogue, lion destiny or group loyalty?"

Nobody spoke up.

"Krolia, pass on to Kolivan my request to track Shiro's whereabouts," Allura said. "Everyone else, we're going to focus on verifying how trustworthy Lotor is."

Keith looked around, but found no support. Lance gave an apologetic shrug.

Allura returned to Hunk to discuss Balmeras. Pidge shrugged and resumed her work. Coran idled around, fretting over silly traditions.

Keith left, but didn't get very far into the hall before Lance caught up.

"Hey—"

"What do you want?" It burst out, and it came to memory full force that had admitted earlier he'd ignored a sign something was wrong. Now Lance was here to defend Allura's decision. "You think Allura is right. So much for her plans for Shiro! She didn't even remember!"

"That's not fair, you know all this political stuff is much heavier than one life."

"There it goes already. You don't understand anything."

"I _do_ get it. We all care about Shiro, but if he had to say anything about it, he'd not want us to risk any innocent lives."

"Oh, you get it? There's something wrong with Shiro, and putting Lotor on the throne _might have been part of that_!"

"Do you actually have a better idea than what you just proposed, _Keith_? Believe me, I'd love nothing more than to chuck the L'Orévil Pendejo into the void right now, but we have a duty as paladins. If all that stuff about power vacuums really is that dangerous, we can't just get rid of Lotor now. No matter how tempting the void is."

"Right. We could have done that, Lance, if you'd told someone about Shiro this whole thing would've been resolved before I even got here." Keith snapped.

Lance's face crumbled and his shoulders sagged. "Right, I—"

Keith had been ready to keep shouting, and wasn't prepared for that response. His telltale irritation remained, but shifted shape. He wanted away from this, not have to deal with this.

So he did exactly that by storming off.

Lance didn't follow, and Keith's pace slowed soon.

Shiro's problem having been found out earlier probably wouldn't have solved the Lotor issue at all. This wasn't fair, it wasn't Lance where the problem lay.

Dammit.

He turned back, took a few steps, and stopped.

There wasn't anything he could say to take that back. Lance would deal. Right? And it'd just be another shouting matched.

Hesitant, he returned to his original plan. He needed to do something for Shiro, and for some reason his mother now was an obstacle to this.

That thought put back the force in his step.

Once in the privacy of his room, he contacted Kolivan ...

"Your mother is already on the line, I am up to date."

And thus, Kolivan disconnected.

What ...

After dialing Pidge, he learned Krolia had gotten a room next to Keith, away from the bridge where they were expecting calls from Lotor's allies. People were really thorough shuffling Shiro's rescue to the background.

Inside that room, she'd just finished reported and the screen shut down when he entered. She turned towards him, expectant and calm.

That just grated on him more.

"Why did you do that?" Keith asked. "I _need_ the black lion. I _need_ to be the leader of Voltron for Shiro."

"Keith, you need ... look. I don't know the best way to be a mother. I've been inclined to act opposite of what the Marmora creed dictated, but that isn't enough."

"Is this more Blade nonsense? This isn't going to save Shiro! The one time I want to be the leader of Voltron, you undermine?"

Krolia set a hand on Keith's shoulder, pushing back just enough to make her strength known. He relaxed a little, instinctive respect to another Galra.

When they both sat down, she continued, "I _betrayed_ the Blade of Marmora by staying on earth because I wanted the kind of happiness that existed here. But I joined the Blade of Marmora because I wanted to save people, including my own. I've returned to this way of life because I believed in it still. Your happiness, or Shiro's life, is not more important than the universe."

"Well. I've been discharged as leader of Voltron, so Allura's mission isn't my problem anymore. I'm free to go after Shiro."

Oh great, now she looked hurt too. His mother did a better job folding it back up though.

"Keith, have you told me everything you've seen of the future?" she asked.

"Yes, why wouldn't I?"

"I have not told you everything," she said. "That is another way I've left you to save you."

"What is that supposed to meant?"

"Knowledge or _death_ , my son. Once one has entered the arena, it is only one of those two. I've kept you out because I love you. I'll finish it alone."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I'll tell you when it's safe. For now, choose who and how you will help."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

She stared at him almost cold, before she said. "You're discharged. I'm still on this mission. It's classified."

 **· · · · · · ·**

Time went on. More than once, Allura was tempted to wander to the sick bay, wait for him to wake and demand her answers. She feared what she would hear more than she wanted answers. What she might do.

And there were duties to distract her.

Periodically, Lotor's crew contacted them. They weren't suspicious yet for as far as Allura could tell. Pidge and them failed to find any trace of the ships leaving the area, and she authorized a sweep to find out whether they still hid somewhere around here.

It was something.

Balmera X-95-Vox was brought up to date, and Hunk spent a considerable amount of time to convince them to move into the quantum abyss. Allura assured them she could wormhole them there and they'd see whether another wormhole inside was possible.

It had to be enough.

Allura took the blue lion alone to enter the rift, and gather quintessence to grant to the Balmera. On Krolia's advice, she also gathered for Lotor's troops to keep them from being suspicious; no enemy would stock their supplies if they meant ill will.

It wasn't enough.

Once within the rift, she sat back and let the quintessence whisper around her. The hope for relief faded when it spoke of grief rather than exaltation.

The first tears were bitter, and each on that followed burned deeper. She sank off the chairs, huddling against the cold metal.

No matter how much she tried to steel herself, she could not hold it in. She grit her teeth anyway, looking up, held onto that last shred of dignity.

Nothing for her.

Altea died, her father died twice, her people a hundred times.

Lotor might die, and no matter how much she wanted to detach herself from him, she couldn't. He'd so quickly become one with her hopes and her loves for what had been lost, and what might be. Maybe it was only that, an embodiment.

A god of salvation, the way the dead Alteans had seen him, only to be a god of death. She should be taken it to mean something that the White Lion rejected him, that he failed the test, but then again, the White Lion had not warned her either.

Reason in the voices of Coran, her father and others urged her wise detachment as one as the same as her political responsibility. And the White Lion stood before her, silent.

She was alone with grief, as always. Alone before the blue lion, who observed her grief and offered no comfort. Her memory went back to her first flight, the struggle to control and escape Lotor. All came back to this, a trap laid by him, and lions who neither cared nor could understand organic suffering.

 **· · · · · · ·**

The cell was the same as before, with a minor change in environment : another cell had been installed about a quarter of the circular room away. The Altean was in it; they'd called her Romelle.

She was distantly familiar from his visits from the colony. Being the only blond Altean made her stand out, which he'd assumed was a genetic quirck. She'd been the only one of her family low on integrated quintessence.

Ever since she'd entered, she'd been pacing the small room and glaring at everything, him included. She didn't speak to him, but there was occasional muffled curses and complaints on the paladins.

Hours passed that way. Food arrived through a hatch. Eventually he laid down to sleep, refusing to worry even as his mind raced over all his limited options. He had to speak to Allura, assure her of their common cause, at first opportunity. Countless phrases he tried out, discarded and started anew.

Romelle still paced.

This frustration slowly built to a crescendo where she shouted up at the elevator, "When are the lights going to go off?"

With a sigh, he sat up. "They won't."

"Aren't they at least going to give me a pillow?"

"This is a prison. Why would you get anything?" Lotor asked. "Compared to Zarkon's cells, these are luxurious. There is heating. You can touch the walls without being shocked. Food arrives regularly."

"This is ridiculous! So what if they could make the cell worse! It should be better."

"I take it you've never been to jail?"

"Uh ... yes, I did. And we had beds and food and the lights went off!"

"That is not quite how I remember creating the prison system."

"Well, the elders decided that was too Galra," Romelle said. "So we changed them. You'd have known that if you were around long enough to not be seen as some worshiped god.

That's why I got suspicious of you in the first place, you know. You were treated like a savior but you weren't really part of us."

He clenched his fists, despite his claws coming out. Within his mind, he went over the all the ways he'd failed again.

"Will someone turn off these damn lights?!"

"Will you let both of us sleep?" Lotor said.

"Will you stop killing us?" she snapped.

He shouldn't take the bait, he knew that, but to hear one of the very people's he risked so much for to harsh. She'd lived her entire life in hiding, didn't she get it?

"I already stopped," Lotor said. "I hot Voltron on my side, Zarkon's defeated, all we needed was to stabilize the empire before Altea could be revived."

"Well we don't need you for that anymore, do we?" Romelle crossed her arms and staunchly looked the other direction.

"You have no idea what you speak of."

"Of course I don't. You never told us!"

He laid back down, closed his eyes, and tried to will the sleep to come. The need for a speech to convince Allura felt hollow now, and useless. She might align more with what Romelle saw, after all. His father's son.

But still. Allura had to understand. That feeling didn't let itself be reasoned away.

 **· · · · · · ·**

When Lance arrived at the docks, Allura was unloading countless containers. They glowed with quintessence, and the blue lion practically purred. Well, if there was such a thing as purring without sound or motion.

Allura was less elated. Though she gave him a confident smile, her face looked drained.

"Hey, how are you doing?"

"Quite fine. I'm stocking up quintessence for the Balmera and the survivors. We won't have a chance again once Lotor's empire turns on us. It's only a matter of time."

"Does it really have to go this way?" Lance asked.

It probably would come to a fight, but the more he heard, the more winning that fight didn't feel like a victory. Krolia kept saying so many people would die.

"I don't know a better way." She sighed. "Say ... do you agree with my decision about refusing Keith to hold command?"

"Of course. When Romelle was all, let's start a fight with Lotor in the rift while you were aboard, Keith looked _eager_ ," Lance said. "I'm not gonna follow him if he endangers you."

That must've been the wrong thing to say, since Allura just slammed a container down so hard, he was surprised it didn't crack.

"You're angry at him about keeping the survivors a secret, right?"

"Yes, but also at myself. I let it come so far by trusting Lotor, and if we all die or end up in pods, it will be by my hand. And if not him, whomever holds those ships can do untold damage. _I_ allowed this to happen."

"You didn't. It was Lotor who deceived us, and it was Shiro who went rogue and released the virus on the Castle, who helped the ships get stolen and ... and ... I noticed something wrong and brushed it off too."

"No, this is not the same. I trusted Lotor despite knowing what he is like, while Shiro acted nothing like himself. It may cost us every bit of peace we won. How can the coalition ever be expected to trust me when I'm not sure I can trust myself?"

"Allura, it wasn't just you who trusted Lotor. We all did. I had more reason than anyone not to trust him, but he did everything right; better than Shiro did actually.

He had to be perfect to get to you. You brought together the entire coalition, and not once did the Galra spies get any foot in. We liberated a third of the empire before allying with Lotor even became a thing. That wasn't all about Coran's silly stage show, I know. I can't even imagine what all that political stuff you did was about, but we'd be nowhere without you."

There was no warning for what he deemed impossible : Allura turned to embrace him.

He'd wanted her in his arms for a long time, but not like this. When he put his arms around her, it was for her sake alone.

"Let me tell you, as someone who's made a million mistakes: all you can do is get up and try to make it right. We need you. The universe needs you ... the black lion needs you."

She pulled away to give him an utmost confused look, almost affronted.

"What? I'm agreeing with you."

"That's not how I meant the demotion ... is this a joke?"

"I'm not joking." He let go of Allura, and set aside the impulse to jest at silly Altean beliefs. "Come on, let's try it right now."

After some hesitation, Allura followed him to the dock of the black lion.

Lance set his hands on his hips. "Look, no force field. That's a good sign."

That said, the lion didn't roar or even budge for Allura.

Allura stopped at Lance's side, staring up at the black lion. She looked so hopeless.

His hand strayed to her back, almost, before changing his mind. He took hold of her shoulder, the way she'd done to encourage him once.

"Come on. Shiro just betrayed us all _and_ you've been all Oriande approved. If the black lion doesn't go like _uh maybe my standards suck_ by now, you should build a new lionbot."

That got a small smile from her.

She stepped ahead, he stayed put.

This better work. He didn't want to see Allura even sadder, so he resolved that if black didn't take Allura, he'd just refuse to pilot red. If lions could refuse, so could pilot, right?

Allura set her hand on the black lion's paw, ready to climb in. Instead, she gasped. A purple glow fanned around her hands, before she spun back to Lance.

"Shiro is here."

 **· · · · · · ·**


	5. lotsa talking

**· · · · · · ·**

Stars above and below, an endless void of life. Either a mirror or the second dimension,

The afterlife existed; something she'd been taught about as child but never put much thought into until she met her ancestors in Oriande. They existed around an ancient force of life, the cycle with death.

In sharp contrast, this place was pure loneliness. Shiro had not moved on to his ancestors, and none had come for him. There were no features, no objects, no solace. This couldn't be right. This couldn't be the fate of her paladins.

She walked. Far before her, Shiro sat cross legged and still as a statue, glowing in the spiritual violet of his lion.

When the ripples of her footsteps reached him, he looked up.

"Princess Allura?"

"Shiro, I am so glad to see you." She reached out and he took her hand, and she pulled him up from his frozen state.

"As am I," he said. "Are you ... I _died_."

And yet Zarkon lived? _Why_?

"I know now, I wish I'd seen sooner. I am not dead, I merely gained a new ability. Have you been here all alone, all this time?"

"Yes," he said. "I stayed for what little aid I might be able to give, I think. I do not know whether my ability to leave depends on whether I want to. Maybe it does. I just ... don't."

Every word he spoke was so tired, so drained. After all he'd suffered at the Galra's hands, that he would end up here ...

"Are there no ancestors to compel you?"

"I have nowhere to go," he said. "I was never close to my family, I do not even know whether they lived or died by now, and I see no path leading me away. There is the lion, and the void."

"Can you see into the living world at least?"

"I can only guess based on what happens around the black lion," he said. "She perceives in ways that are ... she tends to focus on Galra, so we're aware of Lotor becoming the emperor, and whatever occurred around Voltron. The lions speak with each other, thought I can only parse their conversations through what black translates."

Through the weariness, a dim smile appeared, and Allura could almost feel the love he still had for his lion. It was returned in a way, but without understanding him.

Allura had not explored her lion bond since Oriande, now she saw with new soul. The more she experienced, the worse her heart sank.

There was something brutal about the attachment of the lion bonds she had never seen before. Zarkon had been able to compel the black lion regardless, even if he had the witch's help, because of his old bond. And now, she kept Shiro here, alone, her thoughts and will so alien Allura could only speculate whether it was need or kindness.

"Shiro, do you know why you cannot pilot her despite being closer than ever?"

"The black lion ... she has preferences. Can't you feel it?"

She did, now she thought in the direction. Like the awareness granted in Oriande, the ability to look behind the eyes.

It wasn't difficult.

The lion wanted a Galra pilot. Shiro had won her over, she had accepted him, and she had kept him around because like with the clone, it was the best option. His Galra quintessence through the arm was good enough, accustomed enough, and she favored Keith because of the same reason. It didn't matter that it was the person worst at team spirit, and Shiro existing within her soulscape was not good enough for directions now that he had no more Galra traits.

The lions could not be trusted to act upon the best interest of the world. They didn't really understand, or didn't care. What were the lions, even?

Allura might have lost herself trying to unravel this, if not for Shiro's quiet sadness before her. That was more urgent.

"I will be back very soon, let me consult with the others. What would you like me to tell them?"

"I trust your judgment about my situation here," Shiro said. "Just tell them I miss them and hope they're well."

"I will." Allura closed the distance and drew Shiro into a hug. "By Oriande, I _will_ bring you back to life sooner or later. You will not spend eternity here."

 **· · · · · · ·**

Lance had waited anxiously for Allura to finish her meditation thingy. A few minutes in he got the idea to contact everyone to gather, so Allura wouldn't have to do so once she was done.

From there on, a clutter of voices filled the dock and he slunk to the background. Keith questioned Coran on lion magic and fretted and fumed. Pidge and Hunk tried, in vain, to take a peak into their own lions.

When Allura finally woke, she calmly went through a hefty explanation.

The reason Shiro had disappeared after mastering teleportation between this skill involved dispersing quintessence, and the human soul had remained within the black lion.

The black lion favored Galra based quintessence because it had gestated on Daibazaal, around Zarkon. Shiro with his Galra arm, his clone all made out of Galra craft and Keith with his Galra blood. Xe did not

The lions weren't _good_.

Pidge rattled off a lot of observations for odd stuff in the past, like Zarkon being able to still invoke the black lion to the point of breaking Voltron apart, and use the black bayard, and why Lotor was also able to use it.

Krolia brought up she found it strange the lions had waited ten thousand years to choose new pilots, and her appearance on earth sparking it was more chance than anything.

All Lance heard was the crumbling of their special destiny.

He'd thought he might not have a place in it, but this was worse. There wasn't even anything to being one at all. Just some metal animals with whims, and the longer Krolia had talked about the political fallout, the less it had sounded like something worth throwing parades for.

Now Allura all but confirmed that.

"Then, who was the Shiro with us all the time?" Pidge asked.

"We're not sure," Allura said.

"He was a clone by Haggar," Keith said. "Both of body and mind, that's why he was convincing."

"How are you so sure of that?" Hunk said.

"I asked Lotor while he was healing," Keith said way too casually.

"You went behind my back again?" Allura snapped.

"And what about it? I don't have to answer to you."

Hunk got up to intervene, but it was Pidge's, " _That_ was what was wrong? Oh quiz ... you know, what warrants earth swears. _Dammit_! While working on the Omega Shield, Shiro passed out for no discernible reason."

Allura went right back to trance talking to real Shiro, and reported that fake Shiro had seemed out of sorts upon boarding the black lion.

"What about his medical check up?" Krolia asked. "So we can verify whether that event was an attempt to control him, and see what purpose it might have served."

"We don't have one," Hunk said. "I asked whether he wanted to go to the sick bay, but he wouldn't."

"Can I see any other data related to this? And, princess Allura, did you perchance sense anything at the time?"

"No, though I was rather occupied."

Finally a chance for him to say something useful. "Maybe it was to kill you? You would have totally died if I hadn't gotten in the way."

"Waaaaait, wouldn't that mean you died?" Hunk asked.

"Yeah, I did, but she brought me back," Lance said. "I wonder whether I—"

"You died?" Keith blurted.

"... also went into the lion for a bit cause I can't remember."

"Lance, you _died_?"

"Yeah, but I'm all fine thanks to Allura. She's really amazing. Anyway, how are we gonna help Shiro?"

"I guess we're all gonna do the moving on thing again," Hunk said with a heavy sigh. "Fine then.

"Can your Oriande magic do the same as Haggar?" Pidge asked.

"No, not yet. I might be able to transfer Shiro to another body, ideally one compatible with him," Allura said. "A clone _would_ be the best choice."

"How about this. Let's put the rift gate on the Balmera," Pidge said. "That we don't have to waste forces on keeping it safe while we search for the clone. We can tell Lotor's crew we're gonna hide the gate somewhere safe, to explain why he's going away."

"That might work, though we need to know more of Lotor's motivations and whether he would even play along with that," Allura said.

"Who cares?" Keith said. "We'll just make him cooperate."

"All the people not dying from political fallout are going to care about us getting along with him," Krolia said, sound very, very exasperated.

Lance hopped off his crate and left. It wasn't like he could contribute anything anyway, and he'd heard enough political talk.

To his surprise, someone followed him down the hall.

Keith.

Crap.

Lance feared he was about to get an earful about not acting on Shiro's cry for help, and braced to agree and hope it'd be over soon. He had a point for once.

Keith avoided eye contact though, eyes darting up more as if he tried to pluck words off the ceiling.

"What?" Lance asked.

"None of this panned out right. I thought I was leaving the team to capable hands, not some evil clone. When I left, I thought the team would be alright without me," he said.

"And we were okay, even with the evil clone."

"No you weren't! You had no idea Allura would get the ability to defy death! You're not careful enough! It can't all be the clone being a bad leader, it's ... just ... ugh! Why is this so hard?"

Keith could be so exaggeratedly affronted, really.

"Well, we know now and we're always becoming better pilots." He wasn't so sure of himself actually, but he wasn't gonna let Keith just accuse Allura and the rest of the team of being lousy.

"Hmmmph. _I_ should have been in the red lion," he murmured.

What the ... was he jealous? Did he regret not kicking Lance out of the formation? What? Why did Keith have to get so difficult now of all times?

... oh.

He thought if he'd been in the red lion, he would've acted on something being wrong with Shiro. Lance's shoulders slumped.

"You know, I'm ..." Sorry? Trying harder? Agreeing?

Right then, Allura rounded the corner. "Keith, I need you help with Shiro."

That got his attention right away.

"The black lion had shared quintessence with the clone too. Perhaps we could track that somehow, but in Shiro's presence all sense of direction pointed at him. Maybe I can parse it better with you around, since you've spent more time with the real Shiro."

"I'll be there soon."

Allura frowned, but did leave.

"Well, what were you going to say?" Keith sounded so impatient, Lance decided it wasn't worth it.

"Forget about it," Lance said. "Go help Shiro. At least you can do something for him."

 **· · · · · · ·**

Shiro followed the three generals through the familiar dark halls of a Galra ship, until they came before her. The witch. In the back of his mind he screamed, tried to scramble away, but it wasn't allowed. The moment she fixed her on him the last resistant thoughts quelled, replaced by her malice.

He could tell it was such, almost as if he stood by in his own mind, his own emotions packages up while redecorated with everything she put in. No matter how ill fit. She hated Voltron, hated Allura, hated everything that didn't go her very narrow.

Hated that she didn't have Lotor right now. He didn't need to hear her cold rant to know that, and didn't need the flinching in the generals to know this was trouble.

Frozen, waiting for the next command.

Others wandered into his mind.

A pink brush at the edge of his mind. _Allura_.

A red crack joined. _Keith_.

They were looking for him ...

The witch saw them at once, and full out darkness returned. Now in her full attention, his entire mind was throw into disarray as she scourged it until she found the black lion's mark. The quintessence she had shared with him.

Now it stood out as new. He had never regained the bond. A new one had to be forged.

Why?

That question melded into her wondering how they'd tracked him, and what to do with him. He wasn't useful for keeping an eye on Lotor anymore.

"The black paladin's bond to you is strong," she said. "We will use it to lure him out, and break them apart. There is a fleet nearby, allies of the coalition who will soon join up with Lotor's forces. Let's give them something interesting to chew on."

The slightest rustle of curiosity was stomped out, and he did as he was told.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Allura had a mounting pain in her head and desperately hoped this wasn't quintessence overload accelerating a breakdown. She pressed on and opened the wormhole at a safe distance from the distorted Daibazaal.

The Balmera passed soon enough, and the yellow lion left the hangar to visit it. Hunk would report soon enough. She waited alone on the bridge, until Krolia entered.

"Princess Allura, may we have a word?"

Allura nodded.

Krolia stood next to her, eyes out onto the gate. "Does this Balmera have the crew to take care of injured Alteans?"

"Balmeras and Alteans go back a long time, and the sharing of energy is embedded in us."

Krolia wasn't really here to learn about Balmeras. Keith was nowhere to be seen either. She was here just for her.

"What did you wish to speak of?" Allura asked.

"At the Blade of Marmora, we are taught in the pursuit of knowledge above all, and the elusive wisdom to handle it. I am limited, but I have come here to forge a better path.

During the quantum abyss journey, one will receive visions related to one's life of past and future. I have have a great number of these, to the point I believe divergent timelines are possible.

I have begun experimenting in such a manner that I inserted myself in prevalent decisions more aggressive, and have subsequently received more detailed information. It is limited. They do not include contexts, and I am limited to my own future and the flashes with my companion.

I will not risk diverting the potential futures by warning people who I could not see, and now I have the extra fear that one may an infiltrator. As such, I would offer you my service as advisor, if you are willing to accept I may be acting on a partial vision at times. If not, I will explain my reasoning in detail."

"I have an advisor already, one trained in Altean diplomacy for ages. Time visions however he does not have. If I were to accept your council, what would your first advice be?"

"Not advice, but an inquiry, so I may know how to best help you. How do you feel about the one you have grown close to being revealed to have a body count? Is there there a difference between this fact relating to him as emperor, and as someone you love?"

That was a tangle Allura hadn't even started on. She didn't try answering.

"Perhaps a shorter question, how does this all feel to you?"

Allura sighed, and turned away from the gate. Her eyes settled on the spot she'd lost consciousness by her father's hands. The destruction Zarkon had wreaked in his final attack lay close to her mind.

"It feels like when Zarkon betrayed my father. We trusted him. He spoke of the same goals as us, once. It ended with the eradication of my people. I can't help but wonder if this is me repeating my father's mistakes."

"One thing is clear, princess : you might not be in the best state of mind to make calls, given how personal this is.

Hearing someone so coldly spell out that she was weak wasn't at all welcome.

It must've shown on her face, as Krolia continued with, "That was no accusation, princess Allura. We of the Blade of Marmora value the pursuit of knowledge above all, but we can recognize that not all live like this. Not all can. That is why I urge you to give yourself time to dwell on the way you are attached, and not forget or ignore it."

"We _don't have time_." Though, advice might help. "Is there anything you can tell me that indicates how far we can trust Lotor?"

She regretted the words at once, it sounded like begging when she should be angry.

"I do not know," Krolia said. "But regarding trust, I can promise you place entirely too much stake in a group of children who have no understanding of either politics, and are poor judges of mental state and the effects of quintessence."

"What are you getting at? Speak clearly."

"Your child paladins already were eager to pick a fight even before exposure to quintessence, in the way you and Lotor have been," she said. "You snapped in the timeline where you never received the information the moon facility had survivors. Between that and what I suspect was quintessence poisoning, things rapidly degenerated."

The words had a hard time taking root in her mind. Her paladins were her new family, Coran the last of her old. To think they might contribute to a catastrophy even unwittingly ...

"Coran too?" she asked, too tired. Or maybe not tired, but she didn't have a better concept. All the weight on her pushed her further down.

Krolia nodded.

"Perhaps you too are a construct sent to deceive me," she said.

"It would have been more convenient for the witch to leave Shiro stationed as he was."

"Or this is part of some scheme to make me distrust precisely because Shiro proved untrue." Allura ran her hands over her face, finding them trembling as she drew them away.

Abruptly, she turned to the command platform and summoned the camera view of the cells.

Lotor and Romelle were as expected; her as twitchy as before, and Lotor calmly staring at nothing. Her mind wandered back to the day he'd killed his father. The same locked up, thoughtful pose.

He would be fine, he'd said. She never noticed a difference. Had that been understated acting, an attempt not to oversell in case she'd think poorly of attachment to Zarkon? Or had it meant anything?

Maybe now he'd been exposed to quintessence and stood on the same edge as she did, he'd show more emotion. If it was an act, maybe she could see it break. If it wasn't, and he was innocent, or close to it, then ... then what? Nothing in her expansive education had an outline for this.

"I don't know what is right anymore. Lance recommended I seize control of the black lion, only for me to find out just how unreliable they truly are."

"At the Blade of Marmora, when there is a void of guideline, we can only learn through acting on what we have."

She sighed. Then that was what she had to do, despite Altean teachings. "What would you suggest?"

"I encourage you to personally accompany the mission into the quantum abyss," Krolia said. "We might learn more of Lotor and the future if you and him both take a journey through the quantum abyss. It may be worth the risk of you leaving the coalition for a short period. We can pool together as much visions as possible."

The ability to see glimpses of the future, and the past. The thought tempted her for more than one reason. For the sake of peace, and also for herself, she had to know what Lotor truly was about.

It was an easy answer, actually. Just not easy to justify before others.

 **· · · · · · ·**

They wouldn't really hit him. He still acted as if they would, dodging the rain of fire. He set up an open communication channel and did his best desperate voice — actual despair by reliving the pain of his arm being attached — as he pleaded for his allies to stop firing.

It'd be picked by the coalition fleet too.

As good little fools, they opened fire on his attackers, who fled right away. A channeled was opened to his ship, inquiries were made by concerned leaders. She let him free enough to be convincing, to sound like the barely constrained, panicked commander of Voltron, alone, needing back up, but instead of warning anyone, he spoke her words.

"Thank you for your help," he lied. "They turned on me without warning. We were just about to return because princess Allura reported she had succeeded at the rift experiment."

There. That would plant the seed for inconvenient rumors, ready to occupy and keep the princess at a distance. He could do nothing else but obey, and his mind slipped a little further away until even his emotions matched.

It was easy, really, to let her dictate. Free of fretting, taking delight so easily. A plan unfolding. That joy he was allowed to feel, and it hardly mattered it wasn't his own.

 **· · · · · · ·**

During his first imprisonment, Allura had usually come with Shiro, rarely with the others, never alone. He wondered whom she'd replaced Shiro with, and was pleasantly surprised it was the Blade of Marmora warrior; he was pretty sure the other paladins were actual children.

"Is it time at last to hear me out?" he said as he stood.

Allura kept stern eyes on him, while the Galra woman held up a datapad. The projected field displayed information of a certain Ranveigh, who had stolen a shipment of his quintessence and obtained a creature from the quantum abyss. He had combined these two into a monster trained to kill the Galra only, except it wouldn't distinguish between friendly and hostile Galra.

"This was where the trail to your secret began," Allura said. "How far are you involved with this?"

"I did not give either," he said, and quietly worried why Ranveigh had been taking creatures from the quantum abyss. "More than one of my quintessence shipments have been intercepted, stolen, or destroyed. I never pursued them to avoid being found out, so I could not even tell you which in particular this Ranveigh took."

"We don't care which one, but what these shipments were for," Krolia said. "Where did they go?"

"It might have been sent either to the gate construction crew, or the comet retrieval crew."

Krolia cast Allura a questioning look, to which Allura said to him, "You brought in no crew when surrendering Voltron, or even reported anyway."

"Where are they?" Krolia asked.

"You've already met them," Lotor said.

He couldn't keep his eyes off Allura, even if he knew he should pay attention to both. Her eyes widened for a moment, he hoped she'd finally see — but no, she still had the same harshness about her.

A tense silence hung.

"We will proceed into the quantum abyss to revive my people," Allura said. "Whatever truth there is to your words, we will see for ourselves. Like this I cannot trust you, for if there truly was such an explanation with no strings attached, there was no reason for you to hide it from both us and the Altean colony. I fully expect to find something I will not like."

"To what extend this will impact your relation with the empire will depend on how far we can trust you. You can ease things along by helping us cover for your prolonged absence."

He wanted chaos as little as they did. For now he could afford to oblige, if that got him further. "Alright. Now tell me what happened to my ships?"

"They were all taken," Allura said.

"You _must_ retrieve them," Lotor said. "They can cross to the rift without the gate, but this may have unforeseen consequences for the stability of the universe. And ..."

Should he tell her about the mecha mode? Better not. That would just cement he kept secrets against them. He could do so later, when the reveal of a rival to Voltron came across more helpful and less like giving up and flaunting how much he'd gone behind her back.

"... I can shut down the pilot programs, which currently are set to my generals alone. I had imagined they would cease to work with Haggar by now, or at the very least for Axca to discern when it goes too far. I might be wrong, or perhaps whom you saw are clones that cheated in piloting them the way your Shiro cheated the black lion."

"Can you give us anything to remotely disable these programs? Or even something to disable them with from out the cock pit," Krolia said.

"There is a code, but it is triggered by my DNA."

"We can work around that." With that, Krolia opened the cell. "Our cyber engineer will device something."

Allura stepped back, looking even more bitter than before, now the prospect of letting him near her friend was up. But she did not object, so she must have agreed beforehand.

She turned sharply, taking just a few pacing to bring her ahead on the path over the darkness.

This wasn't good enough. They'd haul him around just to make up an excuse, get a disarming code, and put him back? He could tolerate this before, but that Allura would just go back to this now. Surely she understood.

"I know what you must think of me now you know my past, but this does not need to change our future."

"And what if that future involves you shoving us in pods too?" Allura said.

"Allura, I have no such intentions for you or anyone else of the coalition."

"How strictly do you define the coalition then? Should the gate be destroyed, will we find you prepared to sacrifice one of the colonies or two to bolster the war against Sendak? Will that be the very first plan you have, that we'll only learn off too late?"

He hadn't planned to that extent. Everything hinged on the gate, and lacking that, he could use Sincline directly to pass the barrier. But he couldn't honestly say he'd sacrifice nobody either.

"We don't need to dwell on hypothetical scenarios when we know what will happen if the empire collapses."

"Yes. Yes we do. And I must ensure it does not take the coalition down with it, or that its survival is built on us."

She wouldn't even look back now.

With a few quick strides, he was at her side. He reached for her hand as well as he could in his shackles. "Allura—"

Right as Krolia cocked her gun, Allura whirled to face him. She stood her ground, almost daring him to move. Against her? That wasn't— she had to see — they'd worked side by side like none before —

"Stand back," Krolia said. "With your words in doubt, your actions remain."

— oh, but before all that, he _had_ hunted her down and tricked her into danger and sent her into another universe. Trust didn't erase those events. Very well. He'd adapt.

He took a step back. It started to truly sink that she saw him as an enemy again. The impulse to touch her and assure her all was still well was hard to fight down, so he tried to instead force himself back into his own old mindset.

Allura eased at last.

"We need to talk about this in depth, without pressure, or constraints." Lotor nudged at his shackles. "Give me access to my files and I will be able to clarify much better."

"We needed to talk _months_ ago," Allura said. "Now I have a crisis on our hands."

"One that would be of lesser severity if you would just let me out," Lotor said. "You brought the ships to life under my hand, I designed their programming, we should be able to track them together. Allura, don't throw away what we worked for so hard."

" _I'm_ throwing it away? How can I trust _you_ not to throw it away once you have unlimited quintessence? How do I know?"

"Think of what we experienced in the qui—"

"I'm going to think of how to protect the universe from total chaos without the risk of you leading us into another trap. If your colony story was truly innocent, you could have told us months ago."

"I was never certain of the reaction, and there was always the risk of Haggar finding out. One of my generals had recently proved to be a clone, so I had to be cautious."

"We knew I was no clone when I passed Oriande. We were alone so often—" She gestured at the gate, still shining before Daibazaal. "Not a word even when we were completely safe from any prying eyes."

"I would have told you in due time, I didn't want to ruin that moment."

"Ah, and when would that be? Eons, perhaps after you were done pushing my development how it suited _you_? All we did was build your ships. I explored my powers exclusively from that angle, and nothing else. I should have been expanding my powers to help Shiro, my paladins and the coalition, not just you."

Her voice grew more frantic with every word, and he was at a loss what to do about it. Everything he said got her more riled up, so he kept his tongue.

They stared each other down, and her rage ebbed a little. When he said nothing else, she scowled and resumed marching to the bridge. He followed at a distance.

"I don't believe we've been formally introduced," she said. "Krolia of the Blade of Marmora, and self appointed adviser. Would you like my service, if in words only?"

"You're asking things of her, but you're not asking her enough."

 **· · · · · · ·**


	6. proofreading lies in a ditch somewhere

**· · · · · · ·**

The bridge was occupied with the measly castle crew : the paladins, the old advisor, and mice. The sole new occupant was a Balmeran lady, who stood next to Hunk. That was it.

Allura truly did not have any kind of staff. Had the coalition offered her no employees? Had she rejected for security reasons? She'd have to ask later.

Most were sitting or standing on the platform. Allura summoned a map of the galaxy before facing Lotor again. Lance and Hunk flanked her, the Balmeran stayed near Hunk, Pidge remained at her little work station to the side, and Keith was still leaning against the wall. Coran at last took position next to Allura, stern eye on Lotor.

"It is time to decide our course of action, based on new information," Allura said, nodding at Krolia.

With a few quick tabs on her holoscreen, she summoned the recordings of the hangar, the outer atmosphere, the supply lines and readings of the quintessence.

"Lotor claims that the moon facility is a training ground for his crew," Krolia said. "This lines up with our findings : the planet had been terraformed to sustain breathing, presumably to ease practice outdoors, and Bandor must have been a well trained pilot to even leave the moon. The purpose, he says, was to both retrieve the trans reality comet, become an army against Zarkon, and build the gateway we see out there.

As reason for not informing us, Lotor claims he wished to avoid Haggar's spies from catching wind, which is backed up by Voltron's leader proving to be such a spy.

However, he has given no indication he would even share it with Allura, even after it was assured she could not be such a spy. This leaves us to investigate regardless."

She gestured at the Balmera just beyond the window, and waited for the Balmeran or Allura to speak; courtly manners were not her forte.

Allura met the Balmeran, clasping her large hand, to be met with a smile. "Thank you and all your people for coming, and relay my thanks to the Balmera, please."

"Of course," she said. "We owe you so much, it is our honor. Hunk told us there were plans to place that gate upon our Balmera. It should be possible to carry it along, but we worry for the impact upon descent."

"We will use the lions for that, don't worry," Hunk said. "Mine's pushed and pulled heavier things, and Pidge can calculate gravity and angle. Maybe we can loop it around one of the mountains."

Lotor looked on with what might be genuine interest. When Allura turned to him and elaborated on what Hunk had told them, he took it as cue for formal introduction.

"May I say on behalf of the Alteans you will meet, your aid will be appreciated, though they may not be interesting in departing their haven just yet. Regardless, it is also our honor to meet you. I am Lotor, as much of Altea as I am of the Galra. And as this has become prudent, I intend your people no harm."

"Shay. I'm Shay," she muttered without facing Lotor directly.

"Well met, Shay," Lotor said. "I would greet you in a more worthy manner, but as you can see, I am limited in my freedom right now."

"That's okay. I'm fine." She stepped back, closer to Hunk.

"Princess Allura, why have you summoned a Balmera?" Lotor asked.

"To revitalize those in the moon facility," Allura said.

"You should be able to do that in time yourself," Lotor said. "Or with help of sufficient crew stocked with harvest from the gate."

"We don't have time," she said. "I took quintessence from the gate, and—"

"Incoming message from Lotor's crew!" Pidge called. "I'm stalling them with feigned static, but that won't hold for long. Allura, what're you gonna tell them?"

Lotor took a step closer to Allura. "I swear on Oriande, my plan for the Alteans was to wage for on Zarkon. Once I had the trans reality transportation method, I would travel wherever I needed to gather the rest of the material to build an army of mecha, piloted by the Alteans. We would defeat the Galra empire as New Altea."

"If that is true, you could have told them and us of it right away," Pidge said. "Yet you spent weeks imprisoned and said nothing. We handed you to Zarkon, and you said nothing."

"Wait. You handed him to Zarkon?" Krolia asked.

Allura nodded.

"From our outside impression, we had assumed you had staged the whole thing so Lotor could attack Zarkon from behind," Krolia said. "If not so, were the reports of him with the black bayard false too?"

"Shiro decided that on his own," Allura said, her voice having lost its strength.

Krolia cast a quick glance around the room, trying to find similar traces of doubt. Hunk looked guilty a little, but the others only looked harsh. Maybe at Shiro, or at Lotor, but not enough awareness for her liking.

"It's just proof of Haggar's control," Pidge said.

"Let's think about all of you agreeing to a prisoner exchange with no back up plan, to known backstabber Zarkon?" Krolia said. "And not only that, you were going to exchange the most valuable prisoner the coalition has had, who had been providing a constant stream of reliable intel, for an old useless human who would be dead in a few years? This is precisely why the Blade of Marmora teaches so harshly to value the mission over individual attachment. There will be no people to have their attachments when they are all dead."

She faced Lotor next. "And you. This is your answer how we are taking this risk. Pidge does have a point, there is something about the colony you knew that would not help your case with them, however skewered their priorities are."

"When I realized they'd have me executed, I did consider it next time they visited, but when Shiro offered his bayard I chose to fight instead. I could not risk them to Haggar, and as you saw now, she really did have infiltration everywhere. I will concede your doubt on me not telling Allura, but you must grant me some understanding on why I would not say so right away. It is no easy task to tell the princess of my lost people that I have led so many of our own down a dead end."

"And there is everyone else's answer as to why we're investigating instead of putting him on trial," Krolia said. "The price may be peace itself."

"More than that," Lotor said. "The witch is up to something. If Shiro was present during the reveal of my Altean colony, then she now know of them."

"I understand that risk," Allura said. "So I have a proposal : you tell your generals you will be absent for a while longer. We go into the quantum abyss and if it turns out we can trust you not to sacrifice us at your leisure, we will release you."

"I cannot leave the empire for so long," he said.

"And I cannot risk the coalition on your word when we found the skeletons in your closet."

"They will become suspicious if first I am knocked out and then suddenly I want to go on a journey."

"Invent some excuse."

"A journey where I somehow do not want any of my troops to follow. Or will you let them, while keeping me away from them?"

The screen switched on.

"I can't feign static for much longer," Pidge said. "They're working against it. I could jam them entirely though and blame the enemy."

"If they find out the enemy is long gone, they will turn on you." Lotor out his shackled hands to Allura. "Princess, we still have the same goal. One where both of us can do without my arrest being known ... If visiting my colony is the only way to assure you, then I can endure some more imprisonment. You will see this was all needless in the end."

There was the hint that Lotor's considerable patience might run out eventually, but not for a while. Krolia kept her weapon up, but relaxed slightly; Lotor noticed from the corner of his eyes.

Should he take advantage of this and try to escape, that would answer a lot. If he didn't, they'd proceed.

The other paladins didn't take the cue; she hoped they wouldn't shoot reflexively.

"Allura, no," Lance said.

"Princess, this'll go wrong." Coran, of course.

And yet, Allura closed the distance. Krolia kept Keith from stepping in with a hand on his shoulder.

"If he warns them, cut the channel. If he moves against us, shoot his leg." With that, Allura removed his shackles and stepped back.

The screen flickered on, and Lotor flickered into his regal pose just as quickly.

"Emperor Lotor, how are you?"

"Well enough, thanks to the castle's healing services. The incident however left us in a precarious situation.

We believe Zarkon's witch is scheming something. Some of the paladins will head out soon to follow her. I want you to accompany them with all your forces. Class Tixaat security.

I will accompany the remainders of the paladins and take the gate with us. A Balmera will arrive in short order to transport it. Set up a loose guard around Daibazaal and an intense stealth guard to see whether anyone checks up on its status. Class Ouzraat security.

Furthermore, the paladin Takashi Shirogane has gone rogue. Kill him if he jeopardizes anyone. Vrepit Sa!"

"Understood. Vrepit sa!"

The channel shut down.

"That is not what we agreed on!" Allura snapped.

After a confused glance, he said. "Ah, you believe you can use the body?"

"That's besides the point, if the coalition finds you firing on the leader of Voltron—"

"Then you will confirm to them he has gone rogue. I will not let any of my soldiers die to spare that thing. Surely you can find a way to grow a new body too."

"How are we going to explain the coalition that you're shooting at Voltron's leader without any mercy?"

"Mercy tends to alienate the Galra, many of whom already question following me."

"Do we really need that one anyway?" Pidge asked. "If Allura could resurrect Lance with her Altean voodoo, I bet she can do the same for Shiro."

"What did I miss?" Lotor asked.

"Oh, right. During the Omega Shield," Hunk said. "Lance took a shot for Allura and died, but she resurrected him."

"You almost _died_?" Lotor asked Allura. "Princess, this is why mere field missions should not be risks you take."

"But my body wasn't gone," Lance said. "We thought he'd teleported somewhere, but if he died, that means he just went poof."

"That is why we need to get the clone body," Keith said. "Not destroy it!"

Krolia suppressed a groan with years of thorough Marmorian training, well put to the test. Her son was an embarrassment and she was all but sure the visions of him solo ing Galra fleets had no logic behind them.

"That is not your priority," Lotor said. "The witch will keep my ships close and it is only a matter of time before she finds out how to use them. Currently only my generals will be able to steer it, and they will not cooperate with her worst schemes. I know them. But she may find a way to control them and do so."

His eyes bore to Allura, Krolia couldn't tell whether it was pleading or urging or judgment. Considering that he was key to all their problems and solutions, that had to be remedied. Her resolve strengthened.

Krolia moved to them, creating a triangle with them as the other points; a subtle sign the children were not part of the council; not that they'd take the hint.

"For all the aforementioned reasons of universal concord, I recommend princess Allura herself head the investigation on the hidden Alteans. I understand that the civil war is a pressing matter, but the time dilation will be on our side and we may come out with an army on our side. And should we find Lotor cannot be trusted, we can—"

"What about Shiro?" Keith said.

"I was getting to that," Krolia said. "First, princess Allura, your decision about the political and strategic matters?"

"Alright," Allura said. "If Haggar is likely to be there, I must be too."

"You can't be serious. You're just going to leave Shiro stuck in the black lion and let Lotor's people destroy the only body we can put him in?" Keith said.

"For now, yes," she said. "Our priorities are stopping Haggar, followed by securing the dimensional integrity. We keep the gate close and find those ships."

A quick look over her should revealed her son stewing in his anger, ready to storm off and abandon the team of lesser loves.

"Keith, buddy. Weren't you all for leaving Allura to Zarkon once?" Hunk said. "Shiro's still with us at least. We gotta stick together.

"I'm not—this isn't the same—anyway, Allura wants to leave Shiro so she can't complain about that."

Lotor stern mask slipped to glare at Keith. "You were going to leave Allura in _my father's hands_?"

And she also got an inkling of her son's aversion to Lotor, which stood out far more the moment it might just become mutual.

Keith ignored him for once, and faced Allura. "If he ends up draining you to death, Shiro doesn't have a chance to be revived. Deal with your Alteans later, he's not shipping them anywhere right now and Haggar won't be able to pass the quantum abyss easily. You can't trust Lotor."

"I know that, which is why I am going there to find out how far. We may meet the witch there, but she will be slower without a wormhole. If she keeps the stolen ships close, I am willing to send a separate team to deal with that."

"Why do you need proof for trusting Lotor? You have a pile of Altean corpses, and a story he's only handing out now he's been cornered. They're _dead_ , Lotor's a monster, and you cozying up with him exposed the coalition to danger. You just don't want to admit you messed up!"

Allura flinched just slightly at the mention of her dead people, but hardened again, and did the worst she could do in this conversation. Say nothing.

The challenge hung for him to refute her further, or argue Shiro should be dropped in favor of everything else. It extended to everyone in the room, a building tension. The team would either pull together behind one leader, or fracture here.

Lance, full of contempt for Lotor, leaned towards Keith. Pidge had similar feeling, but also an analytical mind, she wavered. Coran was full of paternal skepticism about Lotor too. Shay was hard to read, being an unfamiliar species, but her utter lack of input so far meant she was out of her element.

Curiously it was Hunk who broke the silence by saying to Keith, "Power vacuums are bad. I can't believe you spent two years with your mom and that didn't stick."

"For what it's worth, it almost didn't stick with me either," Krolia muttered before taking Keith by the shoulder and pulling him sideways.

"For as far as covering for this situation, Lotor did cooperate," Allura said. "We will send out the suggestion to the coalition that a human feigning to be Shiro is running around, emphasize he does not have the lion, and leave them to wonder how identical humans can be. We will accompany this with a request to find the real Shiro, and ask that they verify which one it is before

"That will cause some friction if my people cross paths with them."

"Pidge, Lotor is going to write a detailed list of instructions to send along, please prepare a transmission directed both at his fleet and the coalition."

"Fine," the girl said, sounding anything but fine. Krolia didn't know much about her, she and Keith rarely interacted, and they weren't really friends. Nothing to go on, other than another note to Krolia's growing list of simmering problems within this team.

"You understand happens to that clone did not do your credibility any favors, either before us or the wider coalition?" Allura said to Lotor.

"And I hope you realize your callous disregard for my crew in favor of that thing does none to your work ethics?"

"Please, your highnessess, you've done all you can to patch this, but this can still escalate. Which members of the coalition are reliable enough to inform of Lotor's arrest? Resources are another issues, and ... " Krolia turned to Coran. "Why precisely did you not assemble a proper council of advisers and crew for the princess, now there is a coalition? Honestly, I saw a child prompt you today."

The man had the sense to look somewhat guilty. "Well, the Altean ways say we do not hire outsiders—"

"I need no council. I do not believe we should trust any members with the coalition with this information," Allura said. "Lotor's point about the witch infiltrating anyone does hold ground. We do not know what she plans and she may take it was a prompt to start killing and replacing whomever we inform, if she hasn't already. We must contain as much information to this castle as possible."

"So, you're not going to do anything in case Lotor's fleet starts wiping out the coalition? For all you know he's got an order to start doing that if he's gone for too long, or there already was a code in that message you let him send!"

Allura cast a quick look at Krolia, who took it as her cue to say, "When I got up to date with the rest of the Blade, our subtle codes indicates no trouble brewing from anyone but the Fire of Purification."

"Then I will not act upon a ghost of a threat," Allura said. "No adjustments to our plan."

Here the responses split in a way Krolia found disheartening. Hunk and Shay were the only ones clearly on the side of their commander, while her own son was the face of the opposition. She'd gone over what ought to happen with him for so long, and he still ... where had she gone wrong?

They outright argued with Allura, with different iterations of emotionally driven argument. It got them nowhere, so Lance insisted Coran make himself heard. Said adviser had already been hovered with worry, just unable to get a word in.

"Princess, I insist you reconsider the situation. The risks are too great."

All along Allura had been collected, but at Coran's words of doubt her face twitched. "I have done _plenty_ of considering, so, no. I am your princess and I do not answer to you."

"But—"

"My decision is final, and you can all get off the castle if it displeases you!"

Coran and Lance fell silent, but Keith snapped, "Fine. I guess I _volunteer_ for the mission of retrieving those ships."

Aaaand there Keith stormed out. Her son.

"Truly, on the day of the damned we shall fester in the bowels of the Anti Marmora," Krolia flipped out because there was only so much she could take from this sorry excuse for a war council.

"What's that mean, some ancient wisdom?" Hunk asked.

"More like present day frustration," Krolia said.

Pidge got up abruptly, shooting a glare at Allura. "I guess you're the princess of something after all, but still not of us. I'm going with Shiro and Keith, you play with your new friends."

And there she went as well.

Allura's shoulders slumped now, and her harshness ebbed into sadness as she looked after them. A great deal of visible sentimentality for the leader of the coalition, which had all sorts of possible complications. Especially if Krolia ever wanted a chance to test whether the lions would pick better pilots.

Then she noticed Lance hesitate, looking between her and the door. What _was_ his deal? He alternated between abrasive and outspoken, and slinking in the background. Before he could make a decision, Hunk said, "I'll go talk to them. We need Pidge to figure out that moonbase thing, right? Come on, Lance! Shay, I'll be back soon!"

And so the last two paladins left.

Krolia allowed herself a moment of reprieve by crossing an arm and sinking her face in the other hand.

"Well, that was not ideal," Lotor said. "I may hope they plan to stay in touch at least until the abyss."

"Is this amount of screaming usual for them?" Krolia asked from her dark spot.

"It's not unfamiliar," Lotor said. "Especially when the princess's decisions are the topic."

"Or the fate of Shiro," Allura said.

It was the most ease she'd seen between them since the hangar, and it passed quickly. Allura started adjust permission levels in her computer, while Lotor's gaze turned to Daibazaal.

"Shall I return him to his cell, in lieu of your still non existent castle guard?" Krolia said.

"No, he can stay. In case anyone hails the castle again," Allura said.

"That, and seeing as half of your technical team ran out, I might provide some assistance loading my gate onto the Balmera," Lotor said.

"While you're at it," Krolia added, "... a map through the quantum abyss might be useful, and any data on whether wormholing right through it would work. And ..."

She weighed her options. Both missions were important, but if Haggar was smart she'd take the ships along to the Altean colony. On the other side, Allura would no doubt arrive there much sooner through use of wormholes, and sending as many lions after the trail of the witch would benefit.

"Keith told me al lot, and I'd like to confirm something about their arrival at Arus."

 **· · · · · · ·**

Lance wasn't sure whether he was running from Allura, or to Shiro, or anything, and it didn't matter. He didn't want to think about anything. Whatever it was. However.

The black lion was already out, he could tell, but the sound of heavy footsteps of the green lion still echoed through the lion hangar. He swerved to its docks.

"Pidge, wait!" Hunk called.

"I'll get in touch later," Pidge said from the still open cockpit. "I've gotta hurry before Keith gets to the rest of the fleet."

Her lion had started moving before she was good and well boarded; weird.

The cockpit closer, the airlock opened, closed, decompression, bye green lion too, and he'd achieved nothing by being here.

Lance stayed there at the dock, quiet until Hunk walked up.

"Can you believe them?" Lance said, though it wasn't as affronted as he wanted it to sound. Team Voltron was breaking apart, they couldn't trust the lions, or their own eyes, and frankly, he didn't want to believe it.

"Are you okay?" Hunk asked.

"No. Nothing is okay. I wasn't even in time to stop them!"

"Hey ..."

"Let's just go back." He put that to action and turned smack into Krolia.

He staggered back. Damn quiet spies.

Amid all the drama, he hadn't gotten a good look at her yet. Other than the purples, Keith's mom was very much like her son, bad hair included. Really, who would have guessed that baste taste on what to do with the patch of hair at the base of the skull was genetically transferable?

"Lance, right? How about you accompany my son?" she asked him calmly.

"Huh, what?" Okay, the purple _and_ the politeness was off.

"You are his right hand in way, you should have a decent idea how he ticks, and when he needs to be told to tone it down."

"Hold it, I thought we were bringing Keith back for like, better mission planning at least? Is he even allowed to run off with the lion with Shiro's soul in it?"

"My son will not be persuaded," Krolia said. "Believe me, he really won't. The best we can do is adapt until he comes around."

"So we're really splitting up Voltron like this?" Hunk asked. "And I'd be all that the castle's got? Look, I can't fight fleets alone. And what if Lotor escapes? What if Haggar shows up? I can't do this alone!"

"I'm pretty sure Lotor set you up for pain with his nanny, but you aced it, right? You can do this," Lance said. "I mean, if we were doing this. Hypothetically. Because we're not doing this, we're not leaving Allura alone. Besides, Blue isn't mine anymore. It's Allura's. Who is a huge target for all sorts of enemies!"

"I will be here," Krolia said. "And you can be here if there is an emergency because your lion can open wormholes on its own."

Hold it, what?

"Oh, right, blue took us from earth to Arus! You can all just come back to the castle with blue right away," Hunk slapped a hand on Lance's shoulder. "Good luck, man. Find Shiro. Get the freaky ships. Find out whether Keith really did grizzle."

"Will you drop that already?" Lance snapped.

"Alright man. I totally understand. You wanna focus on the coolness, but look, one day you're gonna have to accept there is a mullet."

"No! Hunk, this is serious! Her only reason for sending me is that she thinks I can do a thing I can't do!" Lance pointed a finger before her. "Look, Keith's mom, every lion upgrade you gotta earn with some kinda spiritual mumbo jumbo stuff. I'm sure opening that wormhole was some kinda spell or something. None of it was me."

"I believe the earth phrase is bullshit, or horseshit, or any similar variation," Krolia said. "Even the strongest of Alteans needs a teludav, your lion did not. Get a map, make it work. Even if it is directed at the castle only, it will benefit in an emergency."

She shoved him towards the dock of the blue lion, and Lance was about to protest when he realized the blue lion had no shield up.

The possibility before him, it was tempting. A clearer path. Or again, the way blue had been to him for a long time. Coran had called red a promotion, said it had meant he was the right hand of Voltron's leader, but blue ...

"If I get this going, if we can just toss the ships we find through a wormhole to Allura, we can afford to go out of our way to get a body for Shiro, right?" Lance said.

"Naturally," Krolia said. "It would circumvent all the difficulties of a long, dangerous journey, and of sneaking into enemy territory, and of escape when spotted. Mind you, your priority should be the retrieval of the trans reality ships before they do damage."

Lance nodded, eyes still on the glimpse Blue on her docks. Still no shield.

He wanted to say he could do it, but he wasn't sure. He really hadn't done anything special that day, but there was no explanation.

She had answered for him and him alone, and he did want her back. The day he found blue had been the one day he hadn't been in Keith's shadow.

"I'll try. Hunk, we'll see each other later. All of us, Shiro included. I failed him before, this may be my chance to make up for it. Look after Allura for me, right?"

"Will do, buddy."

Lance went to his blue lion, and didn't even look whether the red lion had thrown up a shield.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Keith didn't actually have directions after shooting out the castle, so Pidge turning his audio channel on to provide those was convenient. She'd also gotten in touch with the fleet, who in turn reported still no sign of the escaping ships.

"Want me to tell them I'm joining their crew to find out?" she asked. "Oh, and you've got incoming from Kolivan."

"Let's hear him out first," Keith said.

His mother hadn't followed. Part of him hoped the message was them telling she'd catch up later, but no. Kolivan said that after her first contact, he'd sent some of his people their way. They had already boarded Lotor's fleet, who had hailed them as allies.

Kolivan wanted to know why Krolia had indicated a potential war brewing, but hadn't given more detailed information, and what was up with the sudden change of plan?

Oh boy. How was he going to break this? It'd be easy to rally them up and brace for whatever Lotor planned to unleash. His mother appeared so sure of what she was doing,

"I think ..."

One of the lion com channels clicked open.

"Keith, slow down!" Lance blared.

"One moment." Keith muted Kolivan's channel, before turning to Lance. "

"Keith, I'm not joking! Blue can't go as fast!"

"Blue? What happened to Red?"

"Your mom thinks I should figure out how to wormhole so we can go back to the castle in case of emergency."

That actually made him feel somewhat better about her staying behind. She still looked out for him in a way that'd lead him back. It'd have to be enough, even if it didn't feel that way.

He slowed down slightly. Pidge first appeared next to him, then Lance.

"Guys, listen. Let's just play along with Allura's plan, okay? We can get Shiro a new body along the way, I just ... gotta master this wormhole thing with blue."

"Huh, I forgot about that," Pidge said. "If that doesn't work, maybe I'm gonna try installing stealth on your lions ... maybe I should do that anyway."

"You know what we also should do? Teach that wolf to play fetch. We can just grab the clone once we see him like that and move on finding Lotor's freaky ships."

"I tried teaching him, it didn't work," Keith grumbled. "Quiet now, I need to figure out what to tell Kolivan."

He switched on the channel, just to hear, "Krolia just told us quite the story. I have a contact person waiting for you on the fleet."

Dammit, there went his chance to frame it his own way.

"You're going along with their plan?" He didn't need to confirm whether they'd throw Shiro's future body in the wind, as far as the Marmora creed was concerned Shiro could stay dead.

"It seems the the best cause, given the princess will not budge on the quantum abyss journey. If there is an army there, I can see why, but I suspect we are missing information. We should go over the reports later, first, hurry to Lotor's generals. Be there when they make plans."

The channel switched off.

"We're just gonna have to trust Allura," Lance said immediately. "Okay? Everyone?"

Pidge grumbled, Keith forced out a _fine_. He wished he could ask Shiro right now. When Allura had connected them to the black lion he'd seen him briefly, at a distance, before it fell away. It wasn't enough.

Lotor's back up was barely a fleet. One large command ship with a number of smaller cargo ships around it, only the early stages of an occupation on space. They must've rushed in from afar.

They docked their lions in the same hangar.

Lotor's crew scanned them, not in depth, what with the lions there. After a bayard based confirmation, they were sent through. The bridge expected them, as they wanted status update and assistance on the strange interference. Pidge didn't twitch a muscle, and Keith was sure she was about to conjure up a great excuse for her own static.

When they entered the elevator, no guards joined them, but right before the doors closed a Blade slipped in. Keith distantly knew him, Aumgak was one of Kolivans lieutenants; a narrow, dark gray Galra with more reptilian, scaled traits than the more modern Galra. He kept his hands folded behind his back, at misleading ease.

"I'm here to relay a message from Kolivan, off channel," he said. "They are?"

"Lance and Pidge," Keith said. "You can trust them."

Aumgak's lips drew into a skeptical line.

"We have been informed of your _inclinations_ , and reject them," he said. "My priority is to ensure for the longest possible duration that the captivity of emperor Lotor remains a secret. From here on, we are the elite team chosen by emperor Lotor to pursue the stolen ships while he secures the gate. Understood?"

"Yes." For now.

"We're about to face a number of warlords who might turn on us, should their emperor's imprisonment leak. Most of those who joined Lotor are inclined to honor and tradition, if they conclude underhanded means were used to subdue their emperor, they will unite all the tighter."

"Yeah yeah, we got it. No leaking," Pidge said. "I've got it covered, and they won't talk."

"Hmmph." Aumgak turned sideways, so he'd face the elevator entrance.

That would've been the end of the conversation under normal circumstances.

"So uh, how many warlords?" Lance asked.

Sardonic, Aumgak said, "You did not count first time you met them? Enough to make it worth for the Blade of Marmora to blow up the Kral Zera. Take a guess, paladin."

Keith ignored that, but Aumgak didn't take the hint.

"And now we're told that the emperor we got out of the interference might intend to kill us all once we run out of use? Do you think taking back your war machine will solve the fallout?"

"We're trying to, okay?" Pidge said. "I'm here for whatever the lions can't cover."

Aumgak had to drop his face. "Ah, the technician. Your expertise is hardly what I meant."

"Are all higher up Galra this prickly?" Lance whispered to Keith.

"The Galra are always in contention with the world around them," Keith said. "When we get up there, be cautious not to provoke anyone.

"No problem."

Aumgak growled in the back of his throat.

"And some of them can hear better than humans," Keith said.

" _Now_ he tells me."

"Speaking of telling your allies anything," Aumgak said, "Why did you and Krolia rush to that ship and do nothing to alert us? We could have secured and intercepted the thieves."

Krolia hadn't argued when he'd said they had to go to the castle as fast as possible. No particular reason, warning everyone had appeared the best idea. Had it been?

"Were you following Krolia's directions?"

"No, I—"

"We will call her to order next time she meets regardless," he said, and got off one floor below their destination. "If anyone asks what we did in here, you gave me instructions for scouting."

When the doors closed, Pidge said, "That's weird. Your mom's done nothing but harp on how we gotta account for all possible outcomes. Why would she miss that?"

"I don't know, but ... maybe she saw something of the future in the quantum abyss."

"What now?" Lance asked. "You mean the future?"

"I'll explain later."

The doors opened to a room full of Galra warlords and their lieutenants. Keith was hit with the full realization of just how out of place he was between them all — strangers, enemies, suspects, all older and more experienced than him. His mother had often pressed that he didn't see the gravity of the Galra ways. He'd always assured her he understood the vast power they held.

What made this different from all the masses he'd been in before was that when he was announced, more than a few smiled. Some sniffed the air, and one stepped forward.

"Ah, the Galra paladin. We are honored to be working with you."

Those who had accepted Lotor despite his mixed heritage looked at him, and saw a _fellow_.

 **· · · · · · ·**


	7. the mullet whisperer

**· · · · · · ·**

Lance had all sorts of ideas on what sitting in on a Galra meeting was like and yeah, some of them were met. There was the hollering, but only after tension built up. A surprising amount of talk was very dull stuff about resources. Nobody was gonna mobilize against the coalition unless Lotor said so cause the Galra were aggressively fixed on their hierarchy stuff, but they still wanted a safety net. Without admitting it openly.

It didn't at all help that Keith was doing scarcely anything to dissuade the idea Voltron might be at odds with the Lotor's Galra empire right now, and just their luck, Keith had the most Galra attention.

Kolivan did all the talk assuring the generals all was fine and this was a misunderstanding, but he struggled to be clear because they hadn't had time to make up a shared story.

Pidge started tinkering with her helmet, muttering about remote diagnostics with her lion, and after a few minutes said, "Hey guys, put your helmets back on."

When that got odd looks, she said, "We can talk to our lions this way. We're gonna need it."

Keith jumped in with, "The black lion is Shiro's, I'm using it to remotely check on Shiro's health. Pidge's lion is best with technology."

"Yeah, I'm still doing tests to track those stolen weapons so if we can get this meeting over with quickly? Much appreciated," Pidge added.

When had Keith gotten so savvy?

Not savvy enough to come up with a good reason for Lance to put his helmet back on, though. He guessed they weren't supposed to look like they were having a spy meeting in the middle of the council room.

Pidge nudged his leg under the table. "How's your stomach doing?"

"Huh?"

"Don't think I didn't hear you complaining about it on the way here. Go to the loo if you need it, we don't want you throwing up in here."

Keith added in a sharp glare at Lance to match Pidge's, a dare — no, they were trying to tell him something.

Lance stood. "Eavesdropping is _rude_ , Pidge. And you had to say that here?"

"I was busy scanning, I'm not your nanny," she whispered loudly. "Or your governess."

When Lance left, he heard some Galra generals mutter whether he was the one that had insulted the emperor having a governess once, prompting a row of chuckles.

He slipped out the room, helmet under his arm, and ran almost smack into a Blade, a tiny but still beefy Galra lady.

"The bathroom is that way, don't get lost," she drawled, and took the lead.

Galra bathrooms were somehow both similar to human bathrooms and had things he absolutely did not want to know the purpose of. They didn't split by gender apparently, but all the stalls were individual rooms.

The spy pulled him into one together, dropped her bored attitude and hooked a wire to Lance's helmet. Pidge must've been tinkering with it cause it took with no effort.

Without a word, she started typing. Lance tried to adjust to the audio and visual feed he got up close from Pidge's eyes. Focusing his eyes on something so close was really difficult.

"Can I just get the audio?"

The spy blinked. "Oh. Human limits?"

"Yeah."

Somewhere during his absence, the topic had finally switched to outright discrediting the fake Shiro.

Pidge asked, "Why would we need to have a random device while doing a really important experiment?"

"He said that since the other pilot of the black lion returned, he was free to go," the Galra she faced said.

"He's still our leader, and we didn't expect combat anyway," Keith said.

"Look, we don't wanna alarm you, but we think Shiro is sick," Pidge said.

"Sick," someone off screen thundered. "Why would he even be entrusted with a mission from the emperor if that was so?"

Pidge caught on right away with, "Yeah, we had this huge important experiment, why would we send our leader away for some trivial part? The experiment was a success."

"What?"

"Mentally ill," Pidge said. "You know, when people get a lot of trauma?"

"One who succumbs to such weakness would be the leader of Voltron?"

The Blade groaned. "It's PTSD. By Marmora, these backward fools with their anti knowledge stance will be the end of us. I would question it more if your leader did appear affected. Perhaps we should question _you_."

The general switched on a recording Shiro had sent them, of Lotor giving him instructions.

It sounded awfully accurate. If Lance hadn't known Lotor was in the quintessence field with Allura, he would have believed it too.

"She could have Lotor clones at hand," Pidge whispered. "And Lotor's court believes it?"

"The fact he has a voice recording is what _should_ make them suspicious," the spy said. "But Lotor has always been kept at the fringes of Galra society so they believed Shiro when he said Lotor wanted to be sure his orders were taken as valid, should he encounter anyone. They don't know enough of how he behaves."

"Uh huh. So what are you gonna do about that?"

"Nothing. We were thinking about pleading for Shiro's insanity, building up to the reveal he is a _recently replaced_ clone. You understand, right?" she said. "They must not know about cognitive cloning, it will cause untold chaos."

"Yeah, we had Keith's mom on board, she did a lot of talking about political pijaz," he said with a sigh. "You guys put a lot more thought into this consequence stuff than us."

"Don't be so blase! How will they believe any Lotor we present them isn't a clone? How will they ever trust each other again? How will they trust us to not be clones? No, if any clone suggestion is made, it can be within a time range that does not require him to have known you well."

"Why not just say he's sick?"

"We considered insanity too, but he continues to act normal, and we do not know enough of humans to explain such a thing away."

Well, it wasn't like Lance hadn't made a fool out of himself before. Lots of times.

"What if they don't feel like questioning it cause there's a really obvious example of temporary insanity fits?" Lance said.

She frowned. "What are you going to do? We need to know what you're going to do so we're prepared."

"Trust me, for this it's better if you all act surprised, so hush. Take a chance with me, the chosen blue Paladin. I'm here for a reason, y'know."

Man, it felt good to say that, the blue paladin part. He wasn't even acting the confidence that much.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Why was it that Lotor learned so much more about the paladins whenever they _weren't_ on friendly terms? He'd just been informed that the red lion, Alfor's lion, _rejected_ Allura. Still. _Even now there was only one paladin._

Thus, he was left to explain to Hunk only how to handle the gate. Lotor typically liked cats but

His lion was the heavy hitter, and would be in charge of the Balmerans piloting Galra tech that had been left behind after the Galra were driven off. They were woefully inexperienced, but surely Lotor could fill in the gaps with her knowledge combined with Hunk's vast expertise.

The project was coming together decently, with Allura having already jumped in to adjust the radiation of the quintessence field in her capacity as Alchemist; hopefully she'd made readings to analyze and implement. He dared hope he'd see them once — if — things would return to their better days.

An awkward silence fell while Lotor did his best typing with the shackles on. He was in no need for small talk, or deep talk, so this silence suited him fine.

Allura worked a few meters behind him on the bridge, staffing coordination and security at the same time.

A wall stood between them now, one he did not know how to break. None of the pleading moved her to see things even a little more of his side, so he had dropped it entirely.

"Hey, you okay?"

"As fine as I can be," Lotor said. "What makes you think otherwise?"

"Well, it's just that every half minute you almost drop the work to run to Allura, and I can't keep up fixing your spelling mistakes. This is sensitive equipment, okay?"

He was entirely right, he shouldn't be so distracted.

"Sensitive equipment we're using to play the most epic hoop throwing game ever."

"Hundreds died building that _hoop_ ," Lotor said.

"Oh. Sorry."

"May I ask how old you are that you believe such a comment was appropriate?"

"I'm 18, and yeah, I guess I have a biiit of growing to do? It's not that I disrespect the work involves and the risks. I'm an army engineer for crying out. We learned to make see jokes in dull stuff, I didn't think that through."

"Did you perhaps miscalculate something? Because in earth years, unless _I_ miscalculated ..."

"Yeah, 18 earth years."

No way. He had some clue of earthlings because they'd been in a prison he'd run; naturally he'd run diagnostics to ensure their needs were met and questioned their nature. Earthlings didn't reach full brain maturity till after 22 or so, and their life experience was so feeble regardless ...

"Allura!" Lotor whirled to face Allura. "Are you aware your paladins are _toddlers_?"

She fixed him with a harsh gaze. "If you are going to distract me with meaningless insults to my paladins, I will relocate you elsewhere."

With that, she turned her back on him.

Lotor felt himself deflate and didn't even fight it. It wasn't even that this was so important — he had no way to fix the bizarre problem of the lion's pilot preferences — but still. He'd wanted her to listen to him on just this.

Hunk pulled his attention back to the calculations by correcting a few of his uncharacteristic typos.

"You are children, how does she not see the issue with this?" he couldn't help but whisper.

"That actually wasn't at all obvious from the way you talked," Hunk said. "See, that's what I mean with you needing to work on your talky skills. I know what you meant cause I was part of this whole conversation, but Allura had no idea.

Actually ... I don't think we ever sat down with her and told her of earth. She usually did things together with Shiro, he could keep up with all her talk about politics and magic and all her educations. It was a trust building thing, I guess."

He was so obviously steering at a topic, Lotor cut the chase with, "Do you insinuate I have been deconstructing trust by not speaking of trivialities?"

"Duuuuude you never told us you were half Altean. And you have an entire Altean colony hidden. Do you even know what trivial means?"

"What is this really about?"

"I just don't get it. Altean stuff was your best shot at getting us to trust you and you never did."

"She started trusting me before she knew of my lineage," he said. "And she did not need Altean survivors to share my goal."

"Yeah, but still. Even now you're acting very guilty and won't tell us what's gonna happen when we get to that colony. Looking mighty suspicious from our side."

"I can only hope it'll have Allura see it's best for everyone if I return to the Galra throne."

"Can I tell you something? I think part of why you don't really see on the same level is cause she's living as a survivor and refugee, while you hiding for your life in a very different way. It's a different kind of discrimination, from really different cultural angles, so maybe you could start with that."

Hunk seemed to wait for a comment, but Lotor didn't know what to say about the obvious. The boy did seem to have something concrete to say though, so he briefly paused his typing.

"So, I'm half African American, half Samoan. Black and brown, not a speck of white. I'm not saying it's got any of the same as your troubles, but I've got some idea.

On earth we got a lot of persecution too and for a lot of folks having a darker skin is made into a problem. We've had evil dictators and colonization and slavery, just on a smaller scale I know this isn't exactly like with the Galra — I can't imagine what it's like going around there looking so Altean — but I do know about these things.

My mother's ancestors were enslaved by Keith's ancestors. Growing up, it's something you're not always quite close to unless you have a descendant to talk to, but it's inescapable. Just history in school for starts, it's right there, but the teachers don't really wanna talk about it, and you know so much about the pieces they're skipping.

It's in the fabric of society, every time you see little or big disadvantages you know exactly where it comes from. I wish I knew more of them, but my ancestors there weren't big figures in the movement. Just survivors. We had all kinds of leaders, from the public Martin Luther King, to the Black Panthers defending against to the police, hidden Harriet Tubman working the shadows. I kinda wish I'd learned more of them, cause out here I know only of Voltron and the Coalition seems so distant.

They colonized the lands of my father's ancestors too. There I have ancestor who could tell us what it was like to fight. Not even with weapons, but resistance nevertheless. The Mau Movement's always been on the back of my mind whenever I fought to free people from the Galra — I mean, from your father's empire."

Hunk nodded at the Balmera. "It was right on that Balmera where I fully embraced what I had to do. Whose footsteps I had to walk in now I had so much more power to make a difference than my ancestors. It's an advantage that comes with responsibility."

Here Hunk paused, checking to see whether he still had an audience.

"What are they like?" he asked, intending it to be about Hunk's ancestors.

"They're great, and I'm not just saying that cause Shay is so nice. The way the Balmerans live isn't quite like my peoples, but within the Balmera and their adherence to its kind leadership I saw something of the Fa'amatai. The way of the family. Like Aiga distilled to the soul itself. I think even their quintessence is different because of that. It was an honor helping them on their way to freedom.

Like, we had Samoa for the Samoans, and they have the Balmera for the Balmerans now. That's how it should be. And to be honest, I think that's why it's a bit hard to just take your word. You wanted to postpone freeing the people until you had enough quintessence, like it was just some afterthought."

"I'd passed laws to end slavery before that, but implementing it was slow. I appreciate your story, but you do not know how the Galra ways. They do not bend easily without resorting to bloodshed."

"No, I'm not telling you how to end this war. There's just something about the spirit behind how it was fought. You know, one of its most prominent leaders was killed during a protest. In his dying breath, Tupua Tamasese III said, _My blood has been spilt for Samoa. I am proud to give it. Do not dream of avenging it, as it was spilt in peace. If I die, peace must be maintained at any price_.

We understand martyrdom, but also unity. When the men had to flee, Alaisala and the other wives organized the fight from there on. They all chose to, fully aware of what went down. They carried on without their leader, because the leader represented their unified spirit. It was strong even after his death.

But the Alteans don't even really know you. What will become of them with you gone? What do they know of the Galra empire, if your plans, do they know the enemy the way you do You're always alone, doing things alone, keeping back the truth from us, from Romelle and her people. Martyrs are only martyrs if they have a choice to face what they do."

For better or worse, the idea how Allura's anger and fear came together solidified. No matter how much he tried to be a proper Altean, he was raised Galra, and there had been just open revolt and hidden revolt. He hadn't ever contacted the coalition before he couldn't fully depend on himself anymore.

"Thank you for telling me this," he said.

Hunk clapped him on the shoulder. "And thank you for at least getting is on the way to liberating the universe. We can at least all agree Zarkon sucked. That wasn't a joke by the way, suck is just an earth phrase that means very bad and worth humiliating."

"I understand."

"Cool. Let's work on your and Allura understanding stuff better next."

He either did not understand children, or humans age differently, because he'd known no child to speak like that. Then again, there had not been many chances to know children in his life.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Keith hated this waste of time. For warlords, they were awfully antsy about taxes and distribution. They weren't even talking all about Shiro anymore untill the coalition contacted them.

Nothing like Shiro appeared on screen, just some alien he didn't recognize.

"Where is Shiro?" Keith asked.

Lance quietly slipped back in and took his seat, right as they got a line going with the coalition that was hosting the clone. He wouldn't come on the line.

"He is rather busy with preparing us for potential trouble," the contact said. "He expects you to join him and expresses his concerns about princess Allura still being in the emperor's company."

"You should quarantine him, because Shiro is acting odd," Keith said.

"Yeah, helping Lotor was his idea and he was most trusted by Lotor. This doesn't make sense," Pidge said.

"Keith's mullet though," Lance blared. "He never gave it up like Shiro did his own hair."

The room all looked at him, but he said nothing else.

The contact went on about how they hadn't seen it fit to test Shiro, since he acted exactly like they expected and had been nothing but cooperative.

This wasn't gonna work. They should just go over there, grab him and sort out the rest later. Who knew what else he was messing up.

"If Keith just grew his hair out properly he'd be almost as pretty as Allura."

Keith froze, eyes on Lance.

Lance froze too, and for a moment he seemed sane again — and thus properly horrified by the extremely embarrassing thing he'd just said really what he thinking — but then that grin widened.

"I know it's difficult to do at Shiro's speed, but listen, Keith. Grow your hair out like a proper princess."

This was wrong. Lance wasn't _this_ ridiculous.

"What the hell are you even going on about?"

"It should join Shiro's hair in Pidge's lab, to be engineered to its ful glory."

"Shut up, what are you doing?" Pidge squeaked, nervous from all the — aww crap, the Galra were getting offended.

"Lance, this isn't the time for taunting," Keith said through gritted teeth. "After going on about following Allura's directions, why are you making this difficult?"

"I'm being difficult?" Lance crossed his arms. "We both know princesses need long hair so they can do as much complicated _political_ hairdos as possible? We need the political leverage, Keith. Why do you refuse reality?"

"Maybe we should start with closer paladins if we're going to check anyone's sanity," one of the generals muttered.

"I don't know, it sounds like a typical stupid custom from lowly earth life."

"I heard that!" Lance pointed an accusing finger at a general in the opposite direction of the speakers. "We may be lowly, but we've made it all the way into the space cat league anyway so something we do has to work."

"You are but a last ditch placeholder because you happened to be around the Alteans," the general snarled.

"Who have the princess with the _awesome_ hair. It works like that for humans too, that's why I know it's universal. Amidala was queen of Naboo at 14 but then she stopped the _awesome_ hair and bad things happened to the universe."

The longer he spoke, the more his grin faded to a thin line, and the more it left Keith spooked. He'd been gesturing wildly and looked at everyone in the room, but not Lance looked him dead in the eye and sternly said, "Keith, you have to part ways with your mullet so Pidge can raised it to what it was always destined to be : luscious."

"I don't know zilch about biology but I know that doesn't even work!" Pidge said. "Please shut up."

"No." Lance lost the last bit of his grin, almost frighteningly serious as he raised his bayard. It turned into a gun and the entire room went on edge.

Calm, Lance aimed it at Keith.

"I won't ask again, Keith. If I must take it by force, I will do it. Pidge, ready the tank."

"I don't have a tank! I'm a computer scientist! Put down the gun!"

The shot was clean and accurate, as always. Had Keith not see Shiro snap before, he wouldn't have moved. Now instincts kicked in, and he hurled the table to its side to take shelter.

A few hairs dropped between his feet.

This couldn't be happening. Had Lance been replaced too? When? Was Allura wrong with those weird powers? How did he even get replaced? Where would he even find the real Lance? At least he knew where Shiro was, there was nowhere to start with Lance. What if he was dead? Again? Had Allura even brought him back right?

Before he could even collect his thoughts, the table exploded in a burst of Lance's blast. Keith instinctively dodged behind a chair.

He peeked around the edge, careful to keep the back of his hair that definitely not a mullet, thank you very much, hidden.

Lance planted a foot on the table pieces, posing with his gun hardly in Keith's direction.

"For the sake of universal peace, release the mullet!"

The clone of Shiro had been severe, harsh, even monstrous. _This_ was just peak fake bravado with all the classic Lance touches : the cocked eyebrow, crooked smirk, exaggerated posing.

He remembered his mother talking of loud decoys, and had to suppress a smirk. Leave it to Lance to take that to its most ridiculous conclusion.

Not so well thought out though because the moment his back was turned all the Galra dogpiled Lance.

"Wait! Don't kill him!"

 **· · · · · · ·**

All things considered, that could have gone worse. Sure, he'd broken a finger or two and his arm bone was cracked, but they bought it hook line and sinker. There'd been a lot of talk about frail humans and quintessence poisoning and why hadn't had anyone had a camera to record this.

Pidge and Kolivan had hauled him into the blue lion was 'restraining' and medical attention, all the while he blabbered about mullets. The moment they were safe inside, he dropped it to ask, "Pidge, tell me nobody recorded that."

"One did, and I'm gonna let to have them keep it for the sake of this ruse. I can't believe you went this far. Shooting up a room full of blood thirsty Galra? Couldn't you have at least picked a better fight?"

"Relax, I'm fine. I really am," he said while wincing.

They hadn't been convinced. Cue medical examination and chastisement about doing less posing, more dodging. He had to admit getting caught was not fun, and embarrassing to boot.

It actually hurt a lot.

When Keith stepped in, Lance wasted no time undermining any taunts with, "I take it back, spy work can be fun. I mean, right up until the tackling. Yeesh, why do Galra always have to overdo everything?"

"Are you mad?"

"No, and the look on your face was so worth it," Lance said.

"You shot at me!"

"Relax, I'd made sure the blasts wouldn't hurt anything living before I even started."

"Wait, you can do that?" Pidge asked. "I thought it had

"My hair is _singed_ , Lance!" Keith turned his head to pull out a tiny lock that was just a teensy weensy bit scorched.

"Well that's your fault for having a mullet. If you had longer hair I could more easily aimed in its general direction and miss without it implicating my sharpshooter status."

"Are you for real?"

"The one and only, buddy."

"There's probably gray in there _now_ ," Pidge said with a smirk.

"No! Not you too!" Lance pointed an accusing finger at her. "Hunk set you up, didn't he?"

"Not Hunk. You. Anyway, did you just say you made the blasts harmless, but it still damaged hair? I mean, hair is lifeless, but—"

Lance tilted his bayard back into blaster and shot Pidge right in the chest. With a yelp she fell off her chair. A second later she was back up, barely brushing a hand over the hole that wasn't there before reaching for her dropped laptop.

"See? My bayard does what I tell it to."

"Warn me next time! I could have broken something!" By which she meant her precious computer, which was totally fine. Why was she even using that old thing?

"When did you figure out it could do that? I thought they just took on preexisting forms for us."

Lance shrugged. "I just thought about needing it. I never planned it before, it just always gave me what I needed. One time though it turned into Alfor's sword, but that was probably just cause Allura was around."

"Why would Allura make your weapon turn into her dad's sword?" Pidge asked.

"Maybe I'm destined to become him." He didn't actually believe the cosmos was setting him up to be king, it hadn't even chosen him as red paladin, but—

"You want to become _Allura's father_?" Keith asked. "I thought you wanted to be her boyfriend."

"Eww, no! That's not what I meant! I guess I just wanted to impress her and my bayard gave me a conversation topic or something."

"Man, that really came out wrong," Pidge said. "Let's not get Freudian, okay? The black lion's racist so it's not like we should be putting any stakes in what the magical weaponry tells us anyway, even if they did mean it as destiny. Now, if we can modify our bayards into more than a personal array of weaponry we absolutely _have_ to explore that option."

"If you could fake ID with them it would get us very far."

"I am so looking into that right now," Pidge said. "And recording equipment. Ooh, telescopes, scanners, clothing changes. What about a thin layer of false skin, so we can masquerade better?"

Thank Pidge's geekery for saving them from that awkward tangent.

Lance wasn't sure whether he wanted to follow Alfor's footsteps at all. Being back in the blue lion just felt better, even if it meant less overall. The lions were always present in the back of their minds, the red lion a distant flame, but blue was all around like water.

Leaving her was kinda like getting out of the shower and into the cold. Like, metaphorically. Red was hot, but he didn't know a better way to describe it. And he needed one, because if he had to give up blue again, he wasn't sure he could do it with the same grace as before.

And for what? The heat, and the only times he and Allura had something to share.

"Can you fake a device that tells Lance to stop before he acts?" Keith said.

"Oh, hear who's talking. Hey, Kolivan, how do you deal with Keith's trigger happiness?"

"Rigorous supervision and training were needed to stamp that out. Of course, there are always unpredictable factors. Normally we don't incorporate a Lance into our methods either," Kolivan said, dry as ever.

"Sounds dreadfully dull," Lance said.

"By and large, dull is better than failure," Kolivan said. "Do not pull such stunts again. We _need_ to be informed. You were injured, which we could have prevented by credibly asking more of our order be present at the meeting. We had options we could not explore because of your rash behavior, just because you underestimated our acting."

"Right," he said, hanging his head. "I'll update you in the future."

"So you gotta take acting classes to join the Blade of Marmora?" Pidge asked. "Do I wanna know how Keith performed?"

"Quite adequate for as he is required to look serious and resolute."

"But you're not gonna put him on any missions where he's got to do more than scowl."

"Of course note, he's too fresh for anything complicated," Kolivan said.

Keith didn't flinch at that all, so Lance asked, "So you've been acing a lot of scowling missions?"

"I've only been on one infiltration mission before," Keith said. "That's where I ran into my mom. She ended up figuring out how to save us and sabotage the enemy's mission in one shot, so she really carried that one."

"She sounds pretty cool," Lance said, bypassing the urge to poke for at Keith for his mommy dependence.

"Yeah, she is."

Keith looked so fond, Lance had to stare because come on. You don't get a cryptid sighting every day. It usually took more than a mention too.

Kolivan had to ruin it with a rant about less interesting probabilities.

"Your display might have made the illness point, it does not mean the clone will back that up. As he will continue to act like nothing is wrong, it would help to give the impression he is not sound of mind even if he is not shooting up anything. For this purpose, I want you to walk in there very relaxed, appear to find him normal, and then become disturbed when he doesn't remember certain things."

When that got him just stares, he sighed and added, "Bring up events you did together that the clone will not be able to corroborate."

"Oh, we're gonna lie our asses off," Pidge said. "Sure, we can brainstorm some fun adventures!"

"Leave it to me!" Lance said.

"No. To keep this credible, Lance should be quarantined in case he has another _attack_ ," Kolivan said.

Lance's shoulders dropped. "Oh. Okay."

"We can just confiscate the bayard," Keith said. "It'll be better of Lance is there, so it looks like we're not too worried about the illness."

"Cuffs, then we'll do it," Kolivan said.

Keith just nodded.

Kolivan recruited Pidge to see whether they could manufacture a missing part of the fake Lotor message, using their own computer whizzes and Pidge's access codes; Lotor apparently had been handing those over when she asked.

"Thanks, man," Lance said after they'd left, just to be glared at.

"You need to quit playing around. Any of those Galra could have snapped your neck like a twig!"

"As if you're less of a twig!"

"I don't go picking pointless fight! And I'm stronger than a human. And that's besides the point! I didn't take a huge risk back there."

"Chill. From here on, all I'm gonna do is make up funny stories and sit back and maybe shoot someone from the safe distance of Blue." He patted the dashboard.

Keith lingered.

"What?"

"Does my hair really look so weird you thought this was a credible thing to pick a fight over?"

"Nah, I've seen a lot of Galra with weirder. They were already expecting me to mock Galra was silly reasons. Even though Lotor having a nanny actually _is_ funny, and you should grow your hair out."

"Right. Okay. Good." Stiff, Keith marched out.

Somewhere just outside of Lance's mind, Blue purred.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Allura had difficulty pin pointing wormhole through the quantum abyss, as she expected. The space time difference made it all but impossible to hold onto the location and calculate for the arrival impact. Maybe if she was more skilled ... she half expected her unlocked potential of Oriande to just let her know how, but it really was more of an instinct. What was she missing?

There wasn't time to figure that out, and she wasn't sure yet she could trust Lotor to advice her on this. If he even knew; he hadn't passed Oriande for a reason. She should have asked more about _that_.

The Balmera was large enough to have its own gravitational field, and might be able to navigate the area in relatively safety. Krolia said the space whales had a similar benefit, though they still remained on the safe path. It would have to do.

Could she trust Krolia with navigation of her castle? It wasn't like she could do — but Shiro's clone had infected the castle quite successfully.

They'd once believed Zarkon their friend too.

When the doors opened sounded, she put on her best regal face and turned.

"We are ready," Shay said. "We have all those can fly in the ships, and the Balmera is as close to the rift as safe."

"Alright. Please take and call me if any of you suffer from the quintessence. Right away, do you understand? It will be no trouble for me to help you."

"I'll bring anyone back here in my lion as quick as possible. I think. Unless I'm busy with holding important stuff. But Lotor has lined up emergency ships for that. Okay, so ..."

Hunk skipped to the door, and opened to reveal Lotor and Krolia.

"Lotor wanted to talk to you alone," Hunk said. "Please hear him out while I go do the whole hoo-gate moving? Bye now."

He and Shay vanished before Allura could formally object to having a war prisoner on the bridge. Krolia seemed pretty much at ease though, even as she had her gun drawn.

Allura permitted it if Krolia remained at the door, and secretly admitted to herself she did want to talk to him. Just to have some foundation to what they'd discover at the end of their journey.

When they were alone, Lotor closed his eyes in that way to gather his thoughts, something he rarely needed for as long — or short — as she knew him. She wouldn't let him have the first step.

"I overheard some of your conversation with Hunk. I take it you wish to tell me of graves."

He started with an almost indiscernible hesitation.

"Most of those I recruited have died in the rifts, piloting for the ore, and in constructing the gate at Daibazaal. Others ... Let me first say, quintessence overload causes a unique adverse effect on Alteans. I have knowingly exposed them to this, without telling them of this effect. I said they might die. They believed it risks related to spacial phenomenons and accidents during building process."

Allura braced herself. There, he had sacrificed Alteans. Not by the same belief as Zarkon, driven by his mindless ideals of racial purity and subjugation. Not to the extent of Zarkon's body count either. But not in truth and fully willing cooperation either. How much of his apparent guilt and grief was because he genuinely loved the Altean people, or only because of the failure of his goal to build a new empire to replace Zarkon?

She refused to ask whether he'd have stood by and watch her get overloaded to death if it came down to him. Imagining him to stand by, looking only solemnly sad. She would first see to what extent he went too far.

"Tell me more about this adverse effect."

"Pure rift quintessence imbalances Alteans, like accelerating their metabolism. They gain peak performance, but then quickly wither. This occurred to my mother till her death. Draining them of this effect could save their life, but I don't have machines that can drain exclusively one kind of quintessence, so I drained them of it entirely.

So yes, I have harvested quintessence from those who returned from the rifts. I always meant to revive them later, but used the concentrated quintessence I gained for other matters in the meantime."

That opened up a horrible little bit of wiggling space if they couldn't find and analyze his building plans.

Allura had to sit down, as much as she hated lowering herself before him — strange how that had come back now. But she couldn't

"Princess ..."

She looked up, hardening herself. He'd looked rather like he wanted to step forward, something he'd done so freely before. And too much of her wanted it even now, to take in the comfort her offered.

It wouldn't do. Not when she knew too little, and she had him in chains — by Oriande, even if this passed the best possible way, could anything ever be the same between them?

It was time to stand up, and as a proper princess she said, "I cannot condone how you have used our people. Surely this comes as no surprise."

"You also expose your paladins to quintessence risks by having them pilot the lions."

"The lions don't have that risk. I'm not hiding such a terrible secret from them. Don't derail now. Did you drain any _just_ for the quintessence?"

"No, but I begin to suspects it's best if you find out yourself," he said. "I have not done anything _I_ would call murder, but I don't know how you see it."

"Does peace for the universe also mean something different for the two of us?"

He looked up at last. "I may hope not. Until we learn, and to make that easier, may I ask for a favor?"

Allura nodded. "You may _ask_."

"As we travel through the quantum abyss, we will see parts of each others lives. If there is any that causes you to question my actions, please ask me for story. For the sake of both of our inner peace."

"Very well. Then I suppose you may question me too."

"Is there anything I should expect to distrust you for?"

"Not that I know of, but then again, I don't know how you see it. You have distrusted me before, don't you remember? You never told me you were of Altean lineage."

"I thought it wasn't relevant ... or maybe I didn't want it to be.

"If you really cared for life, and if you see me as judging by blood, why did you not try _everything_ in your arsenal to survive? Not even for the sake of our hidden people?"

"And if you had refused to a blood test? I would have lost all credibility. Who would believe Zarkon had a child with an Altean? It would sound like a tall tale."

"Yes, a very offensive tall tale I would have eagerly see disproved by a DNA test," Allura said. "If you deem me that hung up on bloodlines, wouldn't you try at least? Or are you just suicidal?"

"I cannot afford to die when there is so much I have yet to finish for the universe."

Not the shadow of Zarkon but a ghost lay behind those words, perhaps of great regrets. In this moment she could believe he truly _meant_ to protect. It was his methods she nevertheless had to question.

"Still, you never asked to find out, when questions were all you had. I agree, I must find out for myself who you really are."

And again, she left out what she hoped for.

 **· · · · · · ·**


	8. pancakes

**· · · · · · ·**

Lotor had been through plenty of quantum journeys, none of them pleasant beyond what he learned of Honerva. Alone with his thoughts, countless memories and uncertain futures, it took control of him on the one field he otherwise was safe : his own reasoning. Now he had all this company, it wasn't his own life at the forefront. Other than that one odd vision, he saw much he expected. Voltron's inexpert missions, their juvenile behavior, and their strengths.

Even visions of his beloved colony were frequent, through Romelle.

She refused to truly converse with him, though brightened up a lot when Hunk arrived with food. Lotor had to join in paying compliments to the chef, the boy truly was a miracle with the kitchen.

They started turning the lights off, and blankets and cushions were provided to either of them. Technology wasn't permitted within the cells, but Hunk cooked up two voice activated holoscreens before the cells, supplied with all kinds of entertainment.

Kindness came so easy to them. Combined with the occasionally pleasant time flashes, this was the best imprisonment he'd had in his long life, no contest. If only he could stop worrying about Allura.

One of the earliest flashes told him of Allura destroyed an infected hologram of her father. Of her clinging to it as if it were a real person. To see her act upon the simulation knowing it was fake disturbed him to his core. Wasn't Allura more rational? This madness didn't fit the woman he knew.

It lingered and nagged at him, but he had well honed patience. If Allura was truly mad, he'd find out.

 **· · · · · · ·**

A few days into the journey, Coran had found time to lecture her about Altean courting rituals, but hadn't gotten far. She couldn't deal with it, and it was one of the very few times she invoked rank on him and had the castle shut him out.

He worried for good reason, but this wasn't a conversation she could have now.

From there on, she occupied herself with calculations and fine tuning her Oriandic powers. There had to be a way to use her senses to predict the time dilation on their path, so the journey could speed up. The Balmera struggled staying steady through the narrow path of the quantum abyss, more than often needing to trail space whales when technology failed to calculate safety.

She didn't count the days, only the gravitational waves. It was her new stability as much as it was need, and the need was greater than before.

Traveling through the quantum abyss was an exercise in respecting privacy. Proximity and bond mattered regarding what visions once received.

The first excited her : her father first piloting the red lion. Another of her mother and his, happy years into their marriage, stealing away the red lion for a joyride. Her own first flights in various vessels, with her father, at school. Such things she didn't mind others seeing.

That joy only lasted as long as the failures started cropping up, then the horrors of war.

For the communal Balmerans with their symbiotic ties to the Balmera itself, privacy wasn't the issue as much as reliving their enslavement.

For those on the castle, there was Lotor and all the flashes he brought. Keeping the castle ahead of the Balmera wasn't just for navigation.

It would be a long journey. She hoped that Lance, Pidge and Keith were getting to their mission faster.

 **· · · · · · ·**

They let their lions rest on Lotor's ship while travelling to the coalition's ship, which left Keith was nothing to distract him. He hung out in Pidge's lion because there he'd hear soonest of anything was wrong.

And a lot was wrong.

This was ridiculous. They had Lance in a cell for an imaginary space disease because political crap that didn't even hold water in the long run. Why did Lance have to be like that? Why couldn't he just come up with a normal way to feign insanity?

And why the hell did anyone buy it at all? Were Galra really that stupid? Or ...

"Hey. Is my hair really that weird?" he asked Pidge.

"It's fine. Don't mind Lance, he was just putting up a show," she muttered absently.

"What are you doing anyway with that junk?" He nodded at Pidge's scrambled together computer, which was new to him. Knowing her, that might not even be cause he'd been gone for so long.

"I'm using an joinky laptop without remote access point because we can no longer assume the lions are unhackable and the castle's already been damaged," she said. "These are calculations for the clone's potential route and his time leaving the castle. Judging by the coalition's ally ship, he's way too far to have gone there in one of the lion castle's vessels. We can worry about why that is later, for now we have to make the stories match so we tell the coalition Shiro left earlier than Lotor's last clear contact."

Pidge conjured up a map of the ship Shiro had gone aboard, then tinkered a little with her lion's panels again, be

"Nope.

"The body is right there, we'll just grab it."

"With Lance locked up, I can't even begin to figure out how the blue lion opened that wormhole," she said. "Mine can't, that's for sure. Let's just follow the plan the slow way. That clone isn't going anywhere from the looks of it."

Keith had half a mind to jump into the blue lion and make it open a wormhole.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Allura took to sleeping on the Balmera. After reconstructing one of the facilities, brought Romelle there too. She framed it as a favor to Romelle and a preference for the kind of visions she got on the Balmera.

The unspoken, understood by Hunk and Coran at least, was avoidance of the past. Allura could not escape the visions of Altea's downfall, but there were good visions to relive. Lotor's life was what earthlings called hell.

It wasn't the battles, or the time he spent in the arena, or the beatings even. It was the constant paranoia. The kind of underlying fear for one's life, so different from when one was physically on the run. She understood the threat of the Galra in terms of pursuit, Lotor knew it through pressure and compromise of himself.

Brutal battle was part of Altean training, but at the end of it that was relief. Lotor had been expected to kill more than a few times, and mercy was an endless gamble.

It led her to comparisons of their life without any restraint. He had worse than she knew in more than one way. Allura was well practiced in putting up smooth faces, as he did behind smirking, and now that edged into guilt over feeling at all.

Opposed to that was indignation, for she could parse the compromises he had to make and see the times where he accepted his ways as habit and as need. He only joined Voltron after he had run out of options, all but skirting the surface of a star to escape his father.

He had been a tool in the Galra empire, unwanted, and he had seen tools in the paladins of Voltron as such. Allura gained perspectives without answers, and within the web of ten thousand years of condition, expectation and quiet resistance, her feelings for him were only another complication.

One that found no rest, because on the Balmera, her visions of his past persisted.

 **· · · · · · ·**

They arrived at the coalition ships with the fake Shiro within a few hours.

There was a brief stand off as the coalition expect Galra hostility, which Keith and Pidge defused by heading out with their lions; Lance tagging around weaponless and with a guard in the black lion.

The coalition ship was of an alien species Keith had never met before : a bit like puffy walking pancakes with lots of tiny feet to move them around. They had a large central single eye with smaller ones at the edges, and their equivalent of hands were spindly branches.

They didn't do tables and chairs, just wrapped themselves up to lean into crevices upright, which was where they found the clone, in a nest of columns around a central map.

The clone truly was on point, having already struck up a congenial, relaxed tone. The only thing off was the ease with which the clone swapped battle stories; the real Shiro always had a certain tension when bringing up Zarkon.

When the clone saw them, he stood up with a wide smile. "Keith! I'm glad you all made it here alright."

Then his eyes fell on Lance's restraints.

Cue the charade.

"Why wouldn't we be alright?" Pidge chirped, too stilted. Good thing most aliens here had never met a human for comparison. "It's us who are happy to see you. Why didn't you send a distress signal to us at all? We only hard of the incident second hand."

"Aww come on," Lance said. "Give him a break, we know big booms make Shiro weird sometimes."

"Big booms?" one of the pancake aliens said. Somehow. They didn't really have a mouth at all, yet he still understood.

"Lance, why are you in shackles? With a guard?" the clone asked.

"Oh, you know, I was on a big mission except this time I was all wrong about it," Lance said, holding up a finger. "Just so we're clear, I'm usually right when I have the correct information, even if it sounds silly. Like the Ebubami Boo crisis."

An awkward silence hung across the room.

"What's wrong, Shiro? Concussion? You don't remember the noodle explosion?" Pidge said.

"How can you forget the that Kalternecker eloped with a space pig!" Lance declared. "They ran right into a delicate planetary festival and it was seen as an invasion."

The clone looked thoroughly confused.

"Nobody forgets Kalternecker eloping, right, Keith?" Lance elbowed him. "Riiiight?"

"Only because you won't let anyone forget you saved the day," Keith said, because everybody here would pick up Lance liked to brag.

"I ... do remember that," the clone said.

"Oh cool," Lance said. "You should explain your uh, new friends about what I did."

Nobody was going to buy this, Keith was sure.

"Yes, tell us!" the pancake aliens chorused. "You have quite the talent for telling stories, we'd love to hear."

"Maybe later. Why is Lance under arrest?"

"Not arrest, supervision," Keith said. "Don't derail. You don't actually remember the ... noodle thing. Right?"

"How can anyone forget a heroic deed?"

"Humans can just go weird in the brains," Pidge said. "We should check out Shiro's health."

"Yeah. Maybe he breathed the wrong oils," Lance said. "We earth people need our oxygen a lot. I think. We had a class once about breathing hazards if we ever find livable planets but I forget everything. Because sometimes human brains get weird with memories, right, Pidge?"

"Lions must've done it," Pidge said. "Adapting our breathing, I mean. They don't fix our brains much."

"I'm afraid we're not keeping up," pancake alien number two said. Keith could only tell it was another because the voice sounded different.

"Shiro's our trusted leader but that doesn't mean he can just ignore biology," Pidge said.

Lance patted Shiro on the back as best as he could. "Look, Shiro, it's okay. Maybe you shot first by accident. We just have the Altean bacta tank thing do its work and then Allura can uh, you know heal your brain. Our brains. Cause I have it too."

Almost mentioned mind tampering, keep it together Lance.

"So ... was the thing esteemed Shiro sought refuge for not actually a thing?"

"Totally," Lance said. "As in it wasn't. I shot Keith's mullet a few hours ago."

At this, the Galra guard groaned.

"We suspect Shiro just breathed a weird thing," Pidge told the pancakes.

"If such fumes can cause such strange results, then the timing with the theft of the machines might be related. They might have tried to subtly sabotage any pursuit. You should run air diagnostics on your other vessels."

"Sending a message now," Pidge lied.

The clone froze, then his demeanor switched entirely.

"You're right," he said with a tired smile. "I didn't think much of it at first, but there was a small explosion when a few barrels fell."

Sudden compliance, that might spell a problem, but since Keith couldn't guess what it led to they played along.

"Why don't you come along right now?" Keith said. "There's still a mission to complete, we could use you."

"That sounds excellent, just let me finish up some things with our friends here."

 **· · · · · · ·**

Lotor didn't really try the movies they'd given him. Not just because he wouldn't know their cultures without context, and some things were better appreciated with that context, but because with so many people around the temporal visions were so diverse.

He tried to ignore those of himself, or Zarkon and Haggar, though he welcomed what rare sight of Honerva crossed him — he knew her through the quantum abyss long since. She would never be unwelcome, bringing him certainty the witch was nothing of her.

Krolia's harsh life in the Galra empire told him much he already knew, but there was comfort in seeing Galra creed turned to better causes. Victory or knowledge, why hadn't he ever tried to learn more of them?

Hunk's simple life on earth was often baffling, and yet enviable in its simplicity. Compared to the Galra or even Altean ways, there wasn't any obligatory violence in childhood.

Coran and Allura were in the thick of Altean civilization, and in these visions he found most to enjoy. Context for things the surviving Alteans had told him, and also, shameful as it was to spy, Allura as she should be. Unburdened, regal, and beautiful in her purpose and destiny. Untouched by all the Galra had inflicted upon her.

She had to have been the pride of Altea. Impatient during her studies, but passionate about the cause of peace. How different the universe would have been, had it been her and not Zarkon ushering in a new era.

He wanted to tell her this, but at this time, it felt too personal. Every time, he had to remind himself of that; pleading and emotional appeal had done him no good, so he stepped back.

When Allura herself visited, it was for two reasons.

One, to ask Romelle something about what to expect when they arrived at the colony. Romelle initially gave her ears full about being locked up, but this waned over time in light of Allura's genuinely desire to know about Altea, and an admirable touch of regal composure. For all her spitfire, Romelle surely grew some respect, because they moved her to a better location soon.

Two, to ask Lotor about matters concerning Galra tech left on the Balmera. Though she had healed the being, the facilities remained anchored and attempts had been made to repurpose them and could act up. Now the gate lay on the Balmera, they had employed them for maintenance.

She kept these visits professional, and more with looks than words bid him to do the same. Whether it was Romelle's presence and sometimes Krolia, or her desire to avoid confronted the tension between them.

Regardless, she built up a wall between them that seamlessly matched the one he'd been building for ten thousand years. Going along with it was easy and should not hurt so much. He looked forward to her presence even as every second spelled loss.

He was used to losing what he held dear. Allura had slipped away, and might go further yet the further they went down his past.

Going down her past, with every kind word king Alfor said and each smile of queen Melenor, the more he wondered whether that was for the best.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Allura wandered through a castle thriving with life. Plantbeds full of glowing lights lay from pale copper walls. Elegantly lined lines made up the floor, sometimes covered by roots.

She arrived at a balcony, where Lotor looked across the lush forests of a thriving planet, and the looming threat of Zarkon's castle overhead. A cat in his colors sat at his side.

"Are you nervous?" she asked, all the while finding it ludicrous.

"No, Ven'tar. This is my chance to finally make a difference - to show my father what we are capable of," Lotor said.

Hands not her own wrung together, and Allura shared the doubts.

As preparations for the visit were made, it dawn that this was an occupied planet. The meals gave it away, as food by Galra requirements was prepared, but nothing else indicated occupation. There wasn't even a single banner, and Lotor rejected suggestions he raise them.

Ven'tar trusted this judgment, and feared nonetheless.

Zarkon never got to the banquet hall, because he waited in the first decently isolated room he came across. Lotor and herself were summoned by a stern guard, and arrived to sink to their knees.

The room was lined by massive green spheres, containing flowering purple algae. Within this, even against the warm light of the balcony, Zarkon was a cold, twisted wraith.

"Update me on your progress."

Ven'tar kept her head down, but the testiness of the voice bode nothing good.

Next to her, Lotor said, "Our Quintessence yields are some of the highest in the empire, and we've been more efficient than any other. By working alongside the denizens of this planet like Ven'tar here, we've outsourced ..."

"You dare work with this pitiful race as if they are your equals?!" The explosion was expected, but she still flinched."

"It is working! We have outpaced even the most generous projectors!"

"The heir to the Galra throne should not sully our honor by working with his subjects!"

Ven'tar clenched her hands together.

"It is the way my mother's people would have done things." At Lotor's defiant words, Allura felt a surge of pride and fear.

Even without looking, Zarkon radiated malice so fast, it sent a shiver through her.

Lotor stood up. "You thought I couldn't find out about my own mother, about her people? You thought you destroyed every remnant of Altea, but you cannot unlike you destroy your own son as well!"

"Enough! You are to crush this planet beneath your heel!"

"Never!"

"Then I will," Zarkon sneered.

"You wouldn't - you can't! Father, wait! No, please do not do this, father! Do not make these people suffer for my actions."

"It is already done."

Zarkon turned away and Lotor went over him, his voice broken and desperate. "I will do as you ask. The people will serve the Galra—"

The witch raised an emaciated hand, and electrocuted Lotor. His scream didn't last long and he fell motionless to the ground.

At last Allura could stand, or her host did. Thoughts of rushing to his side died when the witch turned her eyes towards her.

She froze.

But she wasn't worth the attention. It was the Galra guards at the door, whom she ordered to drag Lotor away. They did so without ceremony, pulling him along by the legs.

Outside, Zarkon stepped onto a hovercraft, and the witch joined him.

The facts started to sink in. The fate of Altea was known. Once the Galra empire was provoked too much, where it concern Altea in particular ... Lotor had brought Altea's ways to her home, and so they would not be slaves.

They would die.

The world was cold. Even with the warm breeze and the pulse of the plants and the light, the world was cold in the wake of its death sentence. A tyrant's whim to punish his son, for daring to have mercy in the name of another dead people.

There was no justice and no savior. Altea's values, once renowned, died with Lotor's failure.

She could do nothing over the hours as Zarkon's forces evacuated all Lotor's troops, took back the equipment, and plundered whatever else they found useful. It was so hurried, they forgot some of their own.

Before the first strike, there was a long silence. The thunder it led to wasn't the onslaught of armed forces, but rather a singular darkness in the sky.

Lotor had warned her of Zarkon's terrifying witch in ways she had thought overstated, but here she learned he hadn't even scratched the surface of terror. As the darkness enveloped the planet, its very quintessence was turned against all life, then onward into the foundation itself.

It began with a rumble.

The earth broke to spill out its magma. Already much of the forest was gone. The screams of the city muffled under the breaking earth. Fire licked up at the living walls, the

She fled to the closest hangar she knew.

There were ships only because everyone had choked on the fire, when they had not burned. The hangar door was closed, but had begun melting now, offering a small luck.

She boarded with only one motivation.

Zarkon had to die. Even the peaceful Ven'tar longed for it, a sentiment that last thing to drive her even as her home died. Allura tried to remember Zarkon had already died, but couldn't at the overpowering feeling of Ven'tar.

All that drove her to steer the ship was this despair. There was no land to flee to. All the horizon was ablaze. She could only go up, hope to bypass the Galra ships —

A flash and fire, then no more.

Alone and alive, Allura lay frozen in her bed. Her heart pounded to escape a threat long gone.

For a long time she laid there, eyes wet with quiet tears. The silence of the ship refused to mean anything.

She fled to the quiet holodeck and turned on the flowerbeds of Altea. Within the bright artificial light, she counted her own breath until it synchronized with her slowing heartbeats.

An insistent part of her wanted to rush to Lotor's cell and speak to him, not to learn, but to offer better comfort than before. When he had spoken of a colony, she had not expected it meant planetary omnicide pinned on his head.

But how? She couldn't even tell what kind of comfort she herself wanted, let alone Lotor. Even without the tangible wall between them, here and now.

Ven'tar's last thoughts had been a mess of broken love as her own people died, and the dim hope Lotor might be alright somewhere in the utter hopelessness. She wanted to force Zarkon and Haggar to know this level of despair, but they could never. They had no love for anyone but themselves.

As her mind eased along with familiar hatred, she could move on and at least reconsider the wall between her and Lotor.

He had not lied about his colony story, which settled her concerns about his goals at least. There was not likely an elaborate scheme to deceive her and use her feelings to his benefit.

Brushing the tears away, she sat for a while longer, and waited for the next vision. Invoking the deepest of Oriande's knowledge, she tried to will its relevance.

Far in the past, Lotor opened his eyes to the death of his only friends, and Altea's last legacy of peace.

No more crying for Allura, even as the fire blended with her memories of burning Altea. Of the death of their people. Of Ven'tar and her own, testament to all Altea had failed to protect.

She pressed on, clawing at the power of the quantum abyss to tell her what Lotor did next.

 **· · · · · · ·**

So much for getting the coalition to turn on Lotor's troops, thus robbing Voltron of valuable support. For now, they would play along, and play righteous paladin he could so well. With a witches twist.

Shiro's friends were right there and he lied to them and loved doing it. That was all he could feel by now. She allowed him no more or less, there wasn't even room left to hate her for it.

He still knew he should, but the thoughts whisked away in the cosmic wind whenever they crept up. With the ease of following her orders, he also believed her words. This was him, he wanted it, don't fight himself.

He should find out why they were so confident if possible, or just that stupid. While her guesses were elaborate, there was a wild card in the arrival of Krolia, a stranger experienced with espionage, who had apparently tutored Keith for two years. Keith's rashness was no longer a given, and even less useful if he wasn't the leader of Voltron anymore.

They could further split Voltron by going for the core, because rather than only Keith, two more paladins had takent he bait.

Maybe Pidge should be priority too, since her tech skills made her a threat beyond piloting a lion. Give her a reason to pursue something, go away from the group.

He himself was good bait for Keith.

Now, what to do with Lance? He had to go somewhere his sharp shooting wasn't worth anything.

Nah, he wasn't a big problem compared to ... Pidge. But Keith was still priority to obtain.

Shiro wanted to know why Keith in particular, but she shut that curiosity down with the usual violence, and he could not wonder any further.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Voltron exploded into purple light, and it took the castle of lions along. He scourged the remains, eager for a fight yet.

Within the debris floated a blur of white and pink fabric. Mangled, red and brown flesh wrapped within it.

Allura?

Now he only watched, motionless and knowing nowhere to go. Voltron was gone. Allura was gone.

All his purpose was gone.

And he lived.

Sincline moved when he did, no clarity between them, and all borders gone. The closer he came to the debris, the more remnants he saw. Of the other paladins was nothing left to recognize. Allura must have endured a little longer for being al alchemist.

It wasn't enough to save her in the onslaught of their shared creation. The child.

Yet he lived, and he could not scream.

He fought the urge to flee from this vision, because he had to know what caused it, and why and—

Lotor found himself a heap of limbs and blankets on the floor.

"Dude, are you okay? Should I call help?" Hunk's voice.

Lotor struggled to drag the hair from his face.

Hunk and Shay stood there with a cart with food and new movies, looking painfully worried for him. Quick, he said, "It was only a vision."

"Uh huh. What was it about?" Hunk asked.

"There was a battle—"

"No, no, we saw what happened. It looked an awful lot like this big fight to the death. That you won. What I don't get is _why_."

"I desire no future such as this," he said. "I cannot tell you anything other than that I will do my best to prevent this."

He untangled himself from the blankets, smoothed them out, and sat in place.

Shay was weary, holding onto the cart, but Hunk didn't bother with the shackles. A quick flicker of the shield and he'd shoved the cart in.

"I was gonna suggest the three of us play a computer game or watch a movie together, but you should probably rest," Hunk said. "When I'm alone, I just get flashes from home, from my family. Nothing that's knocked me off my feet. Any of us, really, except Allura."

"It might be our sensitivity to quintessence," Lotor said, refocusing on the food.

"Maybe," Hunk said, thumbing at Shay. "But the entire Balmera and its folk don't have it this bad. It's not Haggar, is it?"

"I am certain it is not."

"Okay then. Gotta go." He pulled Shay along, rushing out.

Plans for games forgotten. Not that he needed childish ways to spent time. Lotor reckoned much of that rush was a spontaneous and justified distaste for congeniality with a future enemy. Really, it had just been a matter of time. He had experience resigning to his fate.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Allura saw her own body dissolve in the wreckage, pulled into the edges of warping time of the quantum abyss. In the safe zone was a shape distantly like the Sincline ships, blended together as some beast.

This was not a vision she had been chasing, yet it came to her freely. The after image lingered long, all the shattered lions and nobody left alive, except for the Sincline ships ...

The _one_ Sincline.

Oh by Oriande. The ships he had her make formed a mecha like Voltron. Lotor had handled the design and programming, and even as she powered the ships she hadn't noticed anything. He had never told her this either, even within the safety of the vessels itself. Unlike the weight of the Altean colony, this wasn't a burden of guilt unless he meant to commit a crime with it.

One that might very well aim at herself and Voltron, for those had been pieces of the castle that she had died in, with no other enemies in sight.

All her prior doubt came crashing back into her mind. An onslaught of fear and anger drove her to the hangar.

She would need more than her castle. She needed a lion. Any kind of security, whatever she could do. There was only one lion without master right now.

The red lion sat still in the darkness. She didn't turn on the light, not wanting to alert Coran. The shame of its rejection still hung over her, though not strong enough to keep her away now.

She stopped before it, and glanced around to be sure nobody was here. No Coran, Hunk, or lost Balmerans.

The last steps to the lion were heavy. She reached out with her quintessence, a dim glow around herself.

As usual, the red lion didn't respond, but the proximity gave her a flash of the past.

A glimpse of when the empire found it hidden on a volcanic planet, passing quickly and with little emotion.

Times of Alfor piloting it, bringing about satisfaction and little more.

What did the lions even _want_?

She had told Lance accepting Keith as a leader had earned him his spot, and told herself it must be her own arrogance that denied it, because she had once rejected Keith for his bloodline.

That couldn't be it.

"Why won't you let me in? What about me isn't good enough? Do I have to bow to Keith before you're satisfied?"

No answer. Allura hd come to bargain and plead, but found herself with rising rage instead. She needed something to defend herself and everyone here, perhaps soon, and still her own father's lion rejected her.

"Ten thousand years," she all but yelled. "There were enough worthy people! If not now, Lotor was once worthy!"

Her rage fell on the void of the lion's soul. As. Usual.

"Why did you wait so long? Why did it come to the point of you being captured by the Galra before finding anyone good enough?"

She set her hand on the lion's leg, and surged into the spiritual plane of its soul.

Void and stars in all directions, as with the black lion. This was the lion's soul, a vast hollow with no form to consider all she valued. Shiro's soul, her own, any other had a shape like a person, mirrored to reality.

The lions were only void within, as far as the complications of spirit were concerned.

"If even my people died as Lotor was driven to despair, however justified or not, because nobody came to save the universe from Zarkon and Haggar, then how are you my allies?"

The air boiled.

" _Who are you_?"

The next flash taught her this wasn't a true void, as the red lion led into the nothing.

 **· · · · · · ·**

It was becoming harder to keep hold onto visions long enough to see them play out. On top of this, Krolia's meditation was rudely interrupted by the door bursting open — literary, as she had tampered with the mechanic to ensure absolutely no interruptions. One would think people would take that hint, but then again, her visitor was the mechanic so he just plowed through that.

"Okay, Keith's mom. Spill it."

Slowly, she stood. "Spill what?"

"Allura and Lotor are really not okay right now. The visions are worse for them," he said. "What are you doing?"

"They are merely visions mingling with their subconscious."

"Whatever. You're doing something that makes it worse."

Hmm, let him in on it or not?

"Give me a few more minutes—"

"Nuh-uh. Not if you're going to hurt them more." He put his hands on his hips in an admirable attempt at intimidation, but the real risk was being denied his meals, that much Krolia knew.

Meals, no matter how good, were not worth risking a mission over, but this was a mission without any instructions, and she had a rather perceptive person before her who might just spill the beans to her, ahem, test subjects.

She sighed.

"I'm in way over my head myself," Krolia said. "Perhaps you could aid."

It instantly deflated Hunk's posture. "Are you serious? Me?"

"Is that so strange?"

Hunk shrugged. "Nobody really cares for what I say unless it's about mechanic stuff and Coran isn't cover it. And not even that all the time. They either ignore me or get annoyed when I point out I was right. People asking me for feedback without machines involved? Outta this world."

Krolia switched her position, still cross legged but facing him now. "Well, I'm listening. Tell, what do you think of Lotor?"

"Uhh ... well, I think he was as scared of that fight to the death vision as I and Allura were. And I dunno, maybe he wasn't faking it when it when he looked happy to have us around."

He didn't sound enthusiastic, and he didn't sound eager to condemn either. Good.

"I've been meditating on the future. Experimenting, so to say," Krolia said. "I've already asked princess Allura to write down her visions, but could use outsider observations as well. Would you keep an eye on them and their responses to certain things?"

"Sure, I'd be happy to if that helps!"

"It will."

She didn't either deny or confirm that Allura informed of the actual experiments Krolia conducted. Better leave that hanging still, as Allura would demand to be let in on Krolia's visions.

There was a thing or two Krolia wanted to avoid her seeing yet, if she could help it.

"And I'd like to let Romelle out, but only under supervision. Please keep her from communication means."

This one was a complete gamble, but the majority of visions far in the future had Romelle free around other friendly Alteans. She might be vital for communicating with them, and it wouldn't hurt to improve her opinion of the other paladins. Whatever the cause of the bizarre coincidences with her timing, there wasn't clear indication Romelle was aware of it, after all.

"You want any shared visions I get of her too?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I mean, as far as I can tell without violating privacy and stuff."

"Yes," Krolia said. "But please know, we are in a precarious time and matters of privacy are secondary to universal stability."

He just frowned. "Yeah, but I'm still not gonna be a dick about it."

That translated to him not leaving it to Krolia what was important enough. Hmm.

"So, why don't _you_ just stay near the people you want info on?" he asked.

"I tried sleeping near Lotor, but I suspect he can sense quintessence somehow. In that timeline, things escalate with his paranoia in such a way he all but launches himself into a quintessence field. I suspect he has issues regarding privacy."

Hunk cringed. "Have you _met_ Haggar? Hey ... now I think about it one of the first things I noticed off about Shi- the clone was that he stopped having nightmares about her. She used to experiment on him, you know. They were molding him into a warrior for the arenas or something."

Things got stranger and stranger. Why out of the entire Galra empire would Haggar be fixated on some random human when she had no reason to believe he was a paladin of Voltron? She'd seen the arm before, of course, but assumed he was an average gladiator. Haggar herself? It might explain why she had material and adequate personal information for a good clone, but her interest raised a whole host of new questions.

"I'd like another favor : write down everything you know of the Galra, of your adventures since obtaining the lion, and anything off even before you left space. In the ballpark of my son being able to sense the lions, that sort of thing."

"Sure, but man, you're intense about this knowledge stuff. Not complaining, I mean, but this is all gonna take me a while. I might have to make a few less meal courses."

She smiled. "A sacrifice we must endure."

 **· · · · · · ·**

A number of Galra stood around the black lion, admiring it from below. When Keith approached, they all faced him, almost reverent.

"Emperor Zarkon's ancient weapon," one said. "I never thought I'd see it up close myself. You must have done great deeds to earn this weapon."

He smiled without knowing what for. "I was chosen by the lion for what she saw, not what I had done yet at the time."

Shiro had helped him, he was sure. Without Shiro's soul within the black lion, he'd still be in red. It caused a twinge of homesickness, but he pushed it aside. If Shiro needed him in black, that's where he'd be.

The clone entered the hangar, smiling in perfect pretense of Shiro as he chatted with the coalition members. Soon, they'd correct that body to be all Shiro, and no witch.

 **· · · · · · ·**

Romelle liked her cell on the Balmera way better, so when Shay brought her to the castle it peeved her out. They better not put her back with Lotor.

Shay brought her to ... the kitchen. What she was supposed to do here with shackles on was a mystery, which must've been obvious.

"Hunk thought we could have a peace meal together," Shay said. "It's one of a few concord rituals of our people, we're going for the food one because Hunk behind the stove is the best."

"So why isn't he behind the stove?" Romelle asked while sitting down at a table.

"Well—"

The door opened again, but nobody entered.

"This violates absolutely every security protocol that could possibly exist," god damned Lotor said somewhere on the other side.

"That's okay, I'm not on Allura's payroll," Hunk said, just as he prodded Lotor into the kitchen. "Hey Romelle."

At least Lotor also had shackles on. Romelle would've kicked someone if he got more freedom than her.

Lotor tactfully took a seat as far away from Romelle, while Hunk attacked the kitchen tools.

"I happened to get a vision from Allura's mom instructing a fancy castle meal and thought we should reproduce that. I need expert Altean taste buds for this cause I think there's some flavors can't even handle."

Romelle looked skyward. "This is a dreadful idea."

"Nah, trust me, I'm an expert."

He missed the point. Being near Lotor was very not fun. His life was a never ending parade of either misery or imperial bullshit. Sometimes both mixed together, like when he was all tiny and beaten and sad about his mother. Whom Romelle was all but positive was the witch. Zarkon talking about his weakness turning to strength? Just what this drama needed, witchy Alteans. Did he learn draining from her?

Hunk plunked down various bowls on the table, with tools. There was a distillation set up too, which he loaded with Altean food goo.

"I must object. You are threading dangerous ground," Lotor said.

"Weren't you the one who set me up with a teacher who now wants to fight me to the death?" he said. "Compared to that, this is gonna be a piece of cake. Literary, cause that's what we're making."

Hunk shoved a bowl with batter before Lotor, and put a whisk in her claws. "It should start smelling sweet around the time it gets bubbly, at which point you need to pour in this."

Cue bag of purple salt.

Romelle got the same but with green salt, and decided that if she was stuck here anyway she was at least going to outdo Lotor with the cooking.

"Shay, can you go find Allura? I sent her a message, but she didn't even respond."

It took Shay three failued bowls — of both her and Lotor — to return with Allura at her side. By then Hunk was rather desperate for experienced input because he really couldn't smell half of what he tried to do.

Considering how Allura staggered upon entering, he wasn't gonna get much help.

"Allura, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Enter the princess in the run for worst liars, please.

She stumbled again. Lotor almost got up, remembered he had shackles, and watched sadly as Shay helped Allura sit down.

The prick. Romelle couldn't even write it off as an act, there'd been a few visions of him being all helpful to people long before Alteans had even crossed his radar. Now she had to reformat her Wicked Monster modus into Selectively Morally Skewered Monster, and who knew where that was gonna go.

"Should we call Coran?" Shay asked.

"Please don't bother him," Allura said. "He'd insist to disband this ... event, anyway. I was looking forward to some time to relax. Sorry for not responding to your message."

"Yeah, I figured he and Lotor wouldn't be great in the same place right now," Hunk said. "What were you doing anyway? I thought we were in a clear time patch."

"I've been experimenting with invoking time flashes."

"Aww man, you too?" Hunk muttered.

What an odd thing to say. None of the others seemed to notice, too focused on Allura, but it stuck out to Romelle. Someone else was experimenting too, then.

"Is that even possible?" Lotor asked.

With admirable monotony, Allura said, "I am making some progress, in the name of short cutting our journey. A vision of your actions on the moon would have saved a lot of time," Allura said. "No luck so far."

Romelle smelled rotten fish. Allura would have said this right away, if it was the first thing on her mind. And if Hunk didn't recognize the dizzy bit — it wasn't Lotor, she'd been celled near him too long — then it wasn't usual to the experimenting thing.

Whatever that meant. Nobody really had explained Oriande to her yet because she didn't get privileges like that as a prisoner. Oh, it was just their ancient legendary lands giving magical powers to Lotor's closest ally.

"Sounds like you need a break," Hunk said, shoving away a third bowl and whisk. "If you're tired just sit by, you can be our taste expert."

"Oh no, I will work," Allura said, holding out her hands.

"By Altean tradition, royalty is to instruct the courses, not make them," Lotor said. "And not do so at all when unwell."

"Not a tradition we need back," Romelle muttered before she remembered that chatting her brother's murderer was obscene.

It was an absurd thing though, the Altean royalty with their rigid rules. She'd caught some flashes of Allura and heard Coran rant about protocol — as if that was the main problem with his princess had been sucking face with Lotor — and all this Altean family nonsense ...

... family ...

... wait. Lotor might have ten thousand years to wade through, but why hadn't Allura gotten flashes about Bandor through proximity with Romelle?

Why hadn't _anyone_?

 **· · · · · ·** **·**


End file.
